Dogs Of War Vu
Sim/Strategy/War => Games Discussion => Topic started by: Asid on February 01, 2020, 03:17:38 PM
-
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/header.jpg?t=1579708325)
Imperiums: Greek Wars is a unique combination of turn-based 4X and historical grand strategy with a mythological twist. Explore the ancient world and open it up to your people. Survive, expand, conquer... and win!
Home page (http://imperiumsgame.com/)
Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1183470/Imperiums_Greek_Wars/)
Forum (https://steamcommunity.com/app/1183470/discussions/)
YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI6LGRZPtK2-axQk4o82mkg)
Single-player, Online PvP, Shared/Split Screen PvP, Online Co-op, Shared/Split Screen Co-op
Imperiums: Greek Wars announcement trailer
https://youtu.be/hfjATNJ9xfY
About
Imperiums: Greek Wars is a unique combination of turn-based 4X and historical grand strategy with a mythological twist.
Inspired by our previous award-winning title Aggressors: Ancient Rome, we bring you a fresh look at a Greco-Persian world of schemers, warmongers, and ruthless politicians. This merciless world is enhanced by myths and stories about heroic deeds and hidden treasures as only the Greeks were able to imagine.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/extras/allFaces.png?t=1579708325)
Greco-Persian world
The game starts in 359BC when Philip II of Macedon takes the throne. Macedonia at the time is a backwater on the edge of the Hellenic world, but Philip is an ambitious man. He has a dream to become leader of the whole of Greece, a dream he will follow until his death...
Choose one of 30 playable factions ranging from mighty Sparta or Athens, ambitious Macedonia, slowly declining Achaemenid Empire and its power-hungry satrapies, to a number of smaller Greek city-states and groups of semi-nomadic societies living on the outskirts of the Hellenic world. Lead your nation to glory if you can...
Lead, rule and conquer
Your task is to do more than survive. You are divine ruler, supreme military commander and political leader who seeks glory and prosperity for all your subjects. Lead them to magnificent victories, manage the economy on all levels, and provide successful livelihoods as well as stable and just government.
It is not a task for the weak; all problems rest upon your shoulders; every crisis is a test of your political and military prowess. Decisiveness, tactical thinking, political shrewdness, and above all an adventurous spirit is what will cause one person to stand out - to rise as a star shining through the darkness of millennia to come.
Historical immersion
The Greco-Persian world of Imperiums is a faithful representation of historical reality, political relations, animosities and ambitions. Take a unique opportunity to experience on your own shoulders the weight of responsibility as the chosen one. As leader you can follow your own path or take advice and guidance from dozens of nation-specific objectives.
Experience the ancient Greek world in such a detail as never before.
Myths and Legends
Ancient people believed in myth and legend; it was part of their reality. Those adventurous enough can send their generals in the footsteps of ancient heroes to find the Golden Fleece or untie the Gordian Knot. Unveil the truth of some of the stories and myths of the Greek world.
Face the opponents
Your opponents will be unforgiving, but if you want more of human slyness and unexpected turns, join a multiplayer game and challenge other players in a race to victory!
New worlds
The universe of Imperiums offers an endless number of realms. Imagine a world to your liking and let us bring it to you. Whatever your choice, enter with a clear mind and prove that you can not only survive but build an empire worthy of the title.
Take advantage of the imagination of others and explore worlds they created. Go even a step further, let yourself be inspired as creator whose ideas shape others’ worlds.
Learn with ease
It is not shameful to take advice from time to time. You’re not alone in this cruel world; there is always guidance to explain, provide context, and offer recommendations. Let yourself be guided by your intuition and logic, and you will soon become a master.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_087b9e2762bdd8d56025138579b8313e9145d9b4.1920x1080.jpg?t=1579708325)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_1a0925ed0e26cef1998395bc24c86053a2ef82cd.1920x1080.jpg?t=1579708325)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_87ff07e75e0512657b7c3bdbabe0c98c345d9c77.1920x1080.jpg?t=1579708325)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_d2162eeb3c9a38b41446d74be64a018260bad626.1920x1080.jpg?t=1579708325)
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_446d004123005625a9f4fa5eda23df16bd44a9f7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1579708325)
-
Visit the beating heart of ancient Greece in this episode of our Faction Highlights series.
Follow our guide Amphoteros on his journey through the central region of ancient Hellas where the political balance is so fragile that a minor conflict could bring the whole region to war. Yet many are not willing to give up their dreams for the promise of peace.
Imperiums: Greek Wars - Faction highlights intro
https://youtu.be/oWbI21iyjY4
Imperiums: Greek Wars - Faction Highlights – Central Greece
https://youtu.be/k4port6otxo
Imperiums: Greek Wars - Faction Highlights – Persian Empire
https://youtu.be/ovLnskci4Ao
-
Thessalian League
Fri, 7 February 2020
The hatred between the warring dynasties of Thessaly goes beyond the grave.
Will you bring peace to these lands again?
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/0e9ef3e58aa10cd411054399652e77417e039921.png)
Tester’s tips
Thessaly is perfect if you want to jump right in to action. The civil war between the Thessalian League and their brethren of Pherae is already underway. You can be sure that you won’t get much breathing space before the enemy goes after your cities and mines.
Luckily the land is protected by sea and mountains. If you can keep your northern neighbor of Macedonia on good terms then you can focus all of your military forces against Pherae without the worry of being attacked on a second front.
Use your General to turn enemy cities to your side and avoid unnecessary losses to your military units.
-
Interview about Imperiums and what is coming up!
Mon, 10 February 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/e60ff637692648750edd6c0bb9aad37031958f03.png)
Find out some interesting facts about Imperiums and its development in the interview we did for eXplorminate
Rob from eXplorminate had some really interesting questions for us, not only about Imperiums but we touched upon its development as well as the whole genre of strategy games. Read it here to find out more about our plans and what we have coming up!
1) Tell us about yourselves and, if you can, why you made the move to 100% indie!
Kube Games is a new studio. We all have some background in game development but we wanted to start fresh with this project as we feel it has the potential to grow and expand on its own.
The decision to go 100% indie, as you say, evolved naturally but it has never been – and still is – not the only path we consider. We keep an open mind in terms of possible ways of cooperation, but right now we feel it is the best way for us and for Imperiums. The competition out there is tough, and if we didn’t find our work fun and fulfilling, we probably wouldn’t have gone all this way.
Indie development has the advantage of complete freedom. You are not tied up by rules, traditional thinking and established processes with strict deadlines. You can be flexible and creative – and that’s the value by which we try to live every day.
And I can say the same about our fans. Some of them help and support us out of pure passion for the game. We are all indie in our hearts.
2) What interests you most in historical 4X games?
A game with historical background gives you the opportunity to relive past events yourself. You step into the shoes of one of the leaders, and with a bit of knowledge of what he/she has achieved, you try to do the same and better.
If the AI is good, you become totally absorbed in the game reality. Historical 4x is a game that makes you think. You cannot just declare war on everybody around. You have to plan your steps, try to outsmart your enemies and perhaps even your allies when you feel the conditions are right. The game hones qualities such as logical thinking, foresight, and careful evaluation of all facts.
Perhaps it is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it gives us a feeling of creation even if it is only in a game. You learn all the time, improving your skills and logic. When you win, you feel that you deserved it, that you actually might be smarter than all the others, and that perhaps if you did live at that time, you could be… let’s say Philip II of Macedon.
3) Tell us about Aggressors and what you learned from that project?
Aggressors was published already over a year ago and we learnt a lot from it – about the game and players, about ourselves and our mistakes.
If we should name one thing though, the importance of external assets was the biggest surprise for us. Game sounds, music and even in-game illustrations. Perhaps many will tell you something different, but the truth is that game aesthetics, UI design, and the look of the map and terrains play an extremely important role in the immersion and the way players feel in the game. I would say that this was the biggest setback if judged by the reviews.
We take any feedback very seriously and we considered all this when designing Imperiums. We are still limited by our budget, but we made a great leap forward. Soon, you will see for yourself.
4) What would you have changed with perfect hindsight about Aggressors?
Well, that’s a question that is not easy to answer. You see things differently when they are done and you can take few steps back and see it from a distance.
Perhaps the biggest lesson was the whole process of designing and creating the game.
Aggressors started as a hobby project with no firm boundaries. Our imagination went on a spree, still newer and newer mechanics were being added with no deadline in front of us. We understand today that we need to discipline ourselves and give ourselves limits and deadlines to be able to move the process forward at a healthy pace. As a result, the internal estimation of the release date of Imperiums has been moved only by weeks.
Another hard realization is related to the quality of assets as mentioned earlier. We really wanted to make everything in-house. It allowed us to touch many different segments of IT and programming. On the other hand, it significantly delayed the whole development process and had a negative impact on the quality of assets. So, if there are any developers among the readers, I can only say: Invest in quality!
The selection of external contractors, colleagues and partners was also not easy. We met some really great guys who helped us a lot and some others who proved to be more of a wasted time. You cannot do everything by yourself, but finding reliable partners is priceless and unfortunately not as easy as it might seem.
When Imperiums is finally out, we plan to write a post mortem to share our experience with other developers out there to hopefully help them save time, money and energy on things that just might not work.
5) Give us a quick summary of what Imperiums is and why it would appeal to our audience?
Imperiums is in essence a 4X strategy game which is probably what the followers of eXplorminate want to hear up front. It is also a historical game inspired by real events built up on a detailed research of the era, which should strike close to home with fans of grand strategies as well.
Many players asked for a fantasy mod, but combining historical strategy with fantasy elements can be tricky, and we didn’t want to repel history buffs. Ancient Greece seemed like a natural choice and a good testing scenario, as Greeks explained even common natural phenomena by the actions of gods, monsters, and mythological creatures. For them that was part of their everyday reality.
Therefore, we introduced a fully optional layer where myths and legends come to life. History buffs can play without being disturbed by unnatural events or creatures, as they are used to from other titles. For those who want to spice up the game with a bit of surprise and some extra adventure, the myths and legends open a whole new dimension of the game. All fantasy elements are tied to the existing mechanics and follow the gameplay in a logical way.
6) What are the main differences between Aggressors and Imperiums?
As I mentioned above, Imperiums is a different world. You can expect all the best mechanics known from Aggressors, only with many new features. To name the most interesting:
• Generals can have quite an impact on gameplay by encouraging troops and inciting rebellions in foreign cities
• Already mentioned myths and creatures of the ancient world
• Heroes who allow you to go on quests and search for treasures
• Common military campaigns that allow you to plan conquests with other players directly on the map and coordinate war strategies
Some other features that substantially increase immersion and fun for players include:
• Extended diplomacy, such as new treaties and diplomatic offers
• Sages who spread knowledge within as well as outside of your country
• Corruption mechanics that simulates the difficulties of managing large empires
• Slavery mechanic that greatly affects state economy and happiness at home
• Technology tree with locked technologies and conditions that accelerate research
• Introduction of territories that affect production of land resources
• Independent cities that defend themselves and are even able to expand
• New nations appearing during the game
• Many new buildings, improvements, state decisions and objectives
• Brand new UI
On top of that, the game will have hot-seat, multiplayer, localization to number of languages, and an improved terrain look.
The map is the most detailed map of Ancient Greece so far in strategy games, with 28 playable factions.
Our ambition is to explore new dimensions in which Imperiums could grow that make the game more real, more interesting, more fun.
7) What are the biggest challenges in creating a historical 4X?
Well, I guess that depends on the historical period. One of the challenges is to find reliable resources, especially good maps and stories. Most people have probably heard of Alexander the Great, but what do you know about his father, Philip II of Macedon? His story is as intriguing as that of his son, but history has nearly forgotten many of the side actors (not that he is one of them!). However, to re-create history you need to give life not only to the main characters but to the small ones as well, to give the world and all the events meaning.
Another major challenge is complexity. Real life has endless number of factors that affect every decision and event. As a designer, you want to put all that in the game, but then it would be unplayable. You have to decide how deep you want to go so that players feel that things happen for a reason and not randomly, but at the same time they are not overwhelmed.
8) What 4X/strategy games do you take the most influence from?
To be honest we don’t look for inspiration in other games. Not that we don’t find them worthy, but once you like a certain mechanic in another game you want either try to add something similar or you adopt it in the same way. It limits your own imagination and affects the game design decisions.
We take a lot of inspiration from real historical events as we know them and try to create a logical link between action the player takes and the ripples it makes in the game. Nothing happens out of nowhere.
Nevertheless, I am sure that players noticed that the closest game to Aggressors is Civilization. Yes, that is one of our favourite games. Imperiums is like Civilization with more historical emphasis and deeper rules.
9) Can you share with us anything that you’ve yet to reveal?
Ah, I should have saved some of the features named in Question 6 for now! ?
Well, we are now preparing beta so anyone who would like to test the game should stay tuned. We are just finishing off the last touches on UI and then we will be ready to start.
If you don’t want to miss it, you can already sign up to get the news here
10) Which strategy or 4X games stand out to you guys as developers the most from the last few years?
There are many good games, but if we should name a couple, they would be Thea and Panzer Strategy. They are not really 4X games, but they are very close to us in the way they do things.
From the 4X world, we were closely watching Jon Shafer’s At the Gates and we are a bit sad about the current state of it. We know very well how difficult, time consuming and uncertain the development of complex 4X strategy game is, so seeing any project run into difficulties is hard to accept – after all, we are all 4x fans in our hearts.
-
Phokis
Fri, 14 February 2020
Proud of its status, Phokis is ready to fight to keep it. Will you overcome this pride and seek allies or you take on the world all by yourself?
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/116e5cff77f6ee37036723655e831b7d179e98f7.png)
Tester’s tips
Phokis is a true fight for survival.
You have the protection of the Parnassos mountain range to your West. Your northern neighbor the Thessaly Pherae is already involved in a bloody civil war so should not bother you. The obvious route for expansion is to attack your nearest neighbor Boeotia, to your East, but it is way harder than you would think at first.
Boeotia are much stronger as they can already use Hoplites (advanced military units). You have no time to lose as you feel you need to pump your money into the army, but you find out quite soon that your resource reserves are dwindling. As you cannot use Blacksmiths (that multiply resource production) right from the start, I usually build Trading improvements in all cities to manage urban resource usage.
It is best to keep on good terms with the Boeotians to give yourself time to prepare. Wait for them to be occupied elsewhere and then attack their rear. If this is not possible because they declare war on you before you are ready, try to engage the other neighboring states such as Euboea or Athens to fight against them to divide their military forces.
Defensive war seems to be a good strategy here. I keep my military units in the cities to protect them and have one or two units in the rear ready to finish off any weak enemy units in my territory.
The initial phase is tough and I cannot say I am always better than the AI but the challenge pulls me back to this faction over and over again.
-
Faction Highlights – Peloponnese
Tue, 18 February 2020
Discover the reality of life in ancient city-states of Peloponnese
The noble Amphoteros, our guide through the ancient Hellas, will take us to Peloponnese this time, the southern peninsula of the Greek mainland. Here lies the great Sparta but we will visit the less known city-states that for centuries live in the shadows of the mighty kingdom.
https://youtu.be/JXbbU-nVC6U
-
Mysia
Fri, 28 February 2020
The Persian Empire is in decline. Is Mysia ready to stand on its own or will it obediently bow to its overlords till the end of time?
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/cf54f90c99ebb24a500cb8e342253993b8f28fbb.png)
Tester’s tips
Mysia is a large state, one of the few on this map. It starts as part of the confederation of the Achaemenid Empire and as such it cannot control its own foreign policy, but it is of great strategic importance as it controls the waterway between Europe and Anatole.
Being a confederation member is somewhat limiting but it gives you time to build up your economy, improve your infrastructure and reform your army. Until you are ready, the Persians kind of shelter you from foreign powers.
At least that is what I expected, but the reality was different. One by one the other Persian provinces established independence and suddenly I found myself surrounded by former friends who valued their own interests more than my friendship.
My advice therefore is to keep on good relations with the other provinces as long as you need them. The proximity to the European coast gives you the opportunity to expand in this direction first but don’t let the others to get too strong a position in Anatole, otherwise they will force you out of Asia Minor.
-
Arkadia
Thu, 5 March 2020
The shadow of Sparta grows longer. Unless Arkadia finds more allies, it will face the Spartan force alone!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/c135d95a87bd4d7f433890ff6994d94bf7c4a424.png)
Tester’s tips
Arkadia might seem a peaceful land but it needs a very careful hand to ride the constantly changing tide of foreign politics. It sits in the middle of Peloponnese, bordering all of the Peloponnesian states, including Sparta. That makes it a perfect target when any of its neighbours decides to expand its borders.
You should not be fooled by the defense pact it has with Boeotia, these allies are too far away to give any rapid and effective help when needed. It is much smarter to try to get as many of its small neighbors on its side as possible to create a Peloponnesian coalition against Sparta.
Sparta is not unfriendly from the start but it is more powerful than any of the southern states and it will use its military force sooner or later.
-
Lydia
Thu, 12 March 2020
Lydia could lead a great revolt against the Persian overlord, as its loyalty to the throne stands in the way of expansion and growth.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/78255a9a1b9ac0240fc9d7e0f01cec0be2068993.png)
Tester’s tips
Lydia is a very large and wealthy western province of the Persian Empire. In the old days its capital at Sardis was the seat of the kings. Although it has lost most of its influence over time, it maintained loyalty to its overlords even when the northern provinces rebelled and wanted to break away from the empire.
The coast of Lydia is peppered with commercial centers, its lands are rich in natural resources, it has a long coast, great access to the sea and trade routes to the rest of Greece are open.
Of all the Persian provinces, this one is indeed the best. You only need to bribe the other provincial leaders to stay on good terms with you while in the meantime you build up your basic infrastructure, fortify your cities and grow your military power.
Once you decide to break away from Persians, you can count on the others to stand on your side.
But beware, the other provinces are quite ambitious and even if friendly at the start, they won’t let you get the upper hand in Anatole.
You might want to secure more territories on the Aegean islands or Crete to spread your influence further from mainland.
With higher difficulties this could be quite challenging, as the neighboring provinces become very aggressive and give you no rest. It also becomes very tricky to judge correctly when the time is ripe for establishing independence from the Persians. If you stay loyal too long while other provinces break away, they will quite likely attack your borders as well. On the other hand, if you break the ties with the Empire before you are strong enough you could be exposed to the Persians seeking revenge.
Hard decisions are part of life though :)
-
Korinth
Thu, 26 March 2020
Korinth wants to grow into a major power again but it needs a steady hand as its future is shaky.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/9fdb927787762b460d3989634033551f0f17c80f.png)
Tester’s tips
The territory of Korinth is split; there is a small area around the city of Korinthos occupying the land between Peloponnese and Attica, and couple of colonies on the western coast of Greece. It is definitely a very vulnerable position. Losing the colonies would impair your ability to grow economically as most of your resources come from there, on the other hand losing the capital city dramatically impacts your army and general morale.
Take advantage of your central position and try to make as many friends as possible. Secure the colonies and then expand towards Akarnania. It is one of the weaker states so your chances there are relatively good, especially if you manage to draw Aetolia into the war as well to help you finish off the Akarnanian forces. Go after cities and resource mines, those should be your priority.
Attacking on Peloponnese or in Attica is tricky. You have only one city (Korinthos) and it is difficult to defend it when you have to use it to reinforce your troops.
The one advantage of these divided territories is that even if you lose one area you still live to fight another day from the other.
-
First beta testers have received their keys
Thu, 2 April 2020
Beta has just started!
Since the call went out that we were looking beta testers for Imperiums: Greek Wars, our mailbox has overflowed with applications. It is indeed an exhilarating feeling to learn how many people are really interested in and have a true passion for the historical 4x genre. We are not in this alone!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/e171bcb62d2b16ac6f081a34a1e2376dd4b7c24a.png)
As promised, we read every single one of those applications and have started sending out keys to the first group of them. As our testers' forum and Discord are getting livelier, we feel a fresh flow of motivation to get this game finished, so that all of you who are waiting for it can play it too!
A big thanks to all our supporters for spreading the word and also to all those who applied. Even if you are not in the first beta run, you still might get a hold of the game soon enough as we will be sending out more keys later.
You haven't signed up for beta yet? You can still do it here http://imperiumsgame.com/apply-to-beta-test/
We will share some more news and insights from the development and the beta testing soon, so stay tuned!
-
Argolis
Tue, 7 April 2020
Strong and proud in their hearts, the Argives remember their great days and are ready to earn back glory and wealth with blood.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/8c5e583433dcbacf1c4fed08f79ad7f7b02b9240.png)
Tester’s tips
I really like to play Argolis, they are in a great position to sail towards Crete and the other unoccupied islands in the southern Aegean and I very much enjoy these explorations. This way you can gain some extra territory for your distant bases and if nothing else, use your small fleet to conduct piracy on nearby trading routes.
As long as you can maintain peaceful relations with the other petty states on Peloponnese, you can grow and prosper. Sparta and Athens are of course big players in this region and I generally try to bribe both with small gifts to stay on my side, at least in the initial phase of the game.
This is also a great setting when you want to try a joint military campaign – dividing the spheres of influence and then attacking in coordinated waves.
-
Faction Highlights – Barbarians
Tue, 14 April 2020
Glimpse the violent nature of life on the outskirts of the civilized world.
Amphoterus, our guide on our trip through the states of ancient Greece, will take us to the northern border of Hellas where Greek civilization meets the warrior tribes from the Illyrian and Thracian wildernesses.
https://youtu.be/FsQs_hQgMWo
-
Micro blog - Generals at the battlefront
Wed, 15 April 2020
How can Generals change the outcome of a battle and maybe the course of the war?
With the first beta testers already busy conquering ancient Greece and Anatole, let’s take a walk through the realm of Imperiums together. Today, we accompany a brave General into battle.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/893e36108a389633c3a1c70adf4edd6c35b2ce49.png)
Generals are special units that cannot be built per se. Any man who proves himself extraordinary in a battle can rise to the rank of a General, or you can hire one if you cannot find such an exceptional man among your troops. Generals have quite a wide range of actions and one of them is boosting the morale of the military forces.
Nothing lifts the spirit of the men in the front lines as much as having their commander side by side with them, not just watching from a safe distance. Let your General ride his horse along the battlefront and encourage the troops who are going into action.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/523361a95ca6633243f8a0d753dc8d86bc51a9b8.png)
Boosting their morale can significantly increase their chances in combat also this mitigates certain disadvantages on your side such as unsuitable terrain or lack of experience. Morale can reach up to 200% - such men will rather die than let the enemy take one step further.
But don’t forget to keep your General safe. Getting him killed would terribly shake the army morale of your troops and that could not only ruin all your plans but might bring about the downfall of your empire.
-
Micro blog 2 - The mastery of side deals
Tue, 21 April 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_446d004123005625a9f4fa5eda23df16bd44a9f7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1585151497)
Ancient Greeks were notorious warmongers and masters of playing very intricate political games.
If you’ve ever watched a video on ancient Greek history, you’ll know that the Greeks were constantly at each other’s throats. Fragile coalitions were made, just to be broken when the other side proved to be stronger or promised a better share of the loot.
Perhaps the key question is, how to keep the third parties out of your way and yet use them to reach your goals?
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/562a65367c1211726f6780ffa8855b1ea3b9124e.png)
In Imperiums: Greek Wars the Greek world is tightly knit, often a war between two states can start a chain reaction. Do you have a strategic ally who you need in a war against a common enemy? Only to find them too stretched to assist because they have a second front with a petty city-state on another border?
Use your position to send a kind request to the leaders of the city-state warmongers, asking them to sign a peace treaty with your strategic ally. If they consent, you untie the hands of your coalition partner and earn their gratitude, this also counts! If they refuse, turn the tide against them by sending envoys to their neighbouring states asking them to declare war on the city-state. That will teach them not to play tough with you.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4aacc8fd377cb8cb3c012482d392ca4dcec14aa7.png)
Using these third party requests you can play one opponent off against another and with a bit of foresight you can sail through the intrigues and shaky political deals with a following wind.
Perhaps a little warning here though, the AI is very competent and can use the same techniques against you. You simply need to be smarter than it :)
-
Micro blog 3 - Conquest of the wilderness
Thu, 23 April 2020
Nothing is given for free, even the defenders of lonely autonomous cities can put up a fight to save their livelihoods.
What’s the first thought that crosses your mind when you find a lonely settlement with no affiliation to a particular state? Easy target, right? Well, you might think twice if you play Imperiums: Greek Wars.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/20bc52330b908d96a2cc94354629723a15f20b0e.png)
Autonomous cities are not soulless entities. Their people live in peace and do not care for the world outside their city boundaries. Truly, they live by the motto “live and let live”. They cultivate the surrounding tiles, build roads and improve their city as anyone would do. They develop and grow as any other human society. But don’t be fooled by their peaceful behavior, they are far from being weak and defenseless. They are capable of spawning defenders when foreign units appear nearby or step into their territory, and these defenders can be a tough nut to crack.
If you think that you can just roll right over them, you might be caught out with a nasty surprise. These autonomous cities have no government that you can send envoys to, but the AI recognizes a threat when it sees one. Foreign troops closing in on its city is one good example. The moment you take any action against them, you make them to break their oath of a non-violent life and they will fight until the last breath – theirs or yours. Poking your finger into a wasps nest is likely to get you badly stung, so be warned!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/98508f51043822ce3ff03e0253af731da08cad3d.png)
P.S. We have some good news for those who like to take it easy though. This whole feature is fully optional. If you would rather have a world where autonomous cities do not fight back, you can make it so.
-
Sparta
Mon, April 27, 2020
As it thirsts for revenge, Sparta’s shadow over Greece grows bigger. Are you worthy to lead the great Spartans into battle?
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/cc89e4cb2723a569ffab3afdc264bc5a34ae3993.png)
Tester’s tips
Sparta is great to play. You are a powerful nation that everybody wants to take down. The way forward is to try and face only one or two opponents at a time and beat down the opposition. Make good use of the Hades soldiers to spread terror around the enemy territory.
Produce as many military units as you can afford, as quickly as possible, then choose a neighbor, any neighbor and attack. Knock out your neighbors one by one, if you can remove the three states that share your peninsula there will only be one land route in and out. Sparta has the advantage of producing superior quality military units, especially as new units may come ready armed with the assault or dread improvements.
-
Micro blog 4 - City Demands
Tue, April 28, 2020
Governing cities in the world of ancient Greece with their never-ending requests and demands is a task for a real leader
Many of the states in ancient Greece were poleis – federations of city-states governed by a council representing all member cities. Also, kingdoms were not as tightly governed as today. Giving people a voice was a notion developed by the old Greeks. However democracy is definitely not the most efficient governing system when council members put their own interests above those of the state.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d91ddca9939e87a2e936d4aa5e6ea38e2352959a.png)
We wanted to simulate this behavior of obstinate city-states that behave selfishly so we introduced something called City Demands.
You, as a ruler, will have to deal with messengers from strong-headed city counselors. They will on occasion, demand that improvements be built in their city, no matter how difficult the current political situation might be. Be aware that their requests are usually driven by real needs, cities close to borders might ask for defense upgrades, small settlements might request economical and cultural improvements to expand. They are fair though, they give you time to get the work done :)
Agreeing with these requests will ensure that the city’s residents are happy and obedient, however refusals will damage the reputations and dignity of the city’s governors. Don’t forget that these are men of wealth and power and they can (and will!) rally the citizenry against you if slighted. So, using strong arm tactics to show them who holds the reins of power, might actually be adding oil to burning embers of local revolts.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/bae79a4599e3eb7c4fddf7ae332a727c33dac5e8.png)
The more authoritative the regime you establish, the less “vocal” the individual cities will be. It is up to you to rule as a democrat or a tyrant.
-
Imperiums Community Rocks
Thu, 30 April 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_446d004123005625a9f4fa5eda23df16bd44a9f7.1920x1080.jpg?t=1587972456)
Any game development is primarily dependent on the work of the dev team but the important role of the players community is often overlooked.
We want to give a special thanks to all the people who supported this project. Not only in that it kept us motivated, but thanks to their feedback, honest opinions and generous help we made great leaps forward in improving the game in all directions. Some spent tens and even hundreds of hours of their time on testing, working on translations, proofreading etc.
There are no small tasks, every minute of their time has its value. We want to give them a voice so that they can say whatever they want to about their experience, themselves or the game. The floor is theirs...
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/12b4e15d235142a9528d96e04022db134df378ed.png)
Max (Augsburg, Germany) German translator, alpha tester
The moment you see how fast the fall of an empire could occur, it lets you realize how vulnerable the world is. One turn can make the difference. That sums up the game and kept my interest since day one.
Louis (Amsterdam, Holland) Alpha tester
Testing Imperiums: Greek Wars has been a great experience. Seeing the game get better and feature complete over time.
The never ending quest for perfection by the developers. The fun, debating about features and design approaches.
Vitali (Minsk, Belarus) Russian translator, alpha tester
It was really great experience to work on such amazing project with such amazing people! Translating the game to Russian, sometimes I wished all the people on the planet would speak English only :D Wish y'all enjoy this amazing game! This is one of the best strategy games on the market, seriously ;) Good luck and have fun!
Linus (Basel, Switzerland) German proofreader, alpha tester
For me, “cooperation” was the keyword in this project:
• There were few, but very motivated people involved, whom I met while playtesting and proofreading in this project.
• We have a developer, who actively listens to the players’ feedback, participates in discussions and answers the questions which arise.
• The new multiplayer feature is something I really like to play, it adds a lot of value to be able to use all of the game mechanics together with humans.
• As a person interested in politics I like the new diplomatic possibilities we get. New possible demands and joint military campaigns are useful to play with or against the AI.
Gary (Stonehenge, United Kingdom) English proofreader, alpha tester
Aggressors Rome is one of my ‘go to’ games and as such I had been keeping an eye on the progress of the developer’s follow up game, Imperiums: Greek Wars. It looked good, so with time to spare and a keen interest, I offered my services as a volunteer. The Development Team were welcoming and are super responsive. It’s been a good experience although I hadn’t appreciated quite how much text there was in the game when I agreed to do some proofreading, soooooo much text! Hats off to the translators, that’s a big job. With extended gameplay and lots of improvements, Imperiums: Greek Wars has also made it onto my ‘go to’ games list it’s both fun and challenging.
Cassius (Vienna, Austria) German translator
It was both a pleasure and honor to be part of this great, fun Imperiums team. Learning a lot about ancient history, plenty of room for creativity and awesome colleagues made my work for Imperiums an experience I will forever cherish. I wish every player much fun playing our game - enjoy!
Angie (Dublin, Ireland) German translator
Being asked for the Imperiums campaign was a special treat. Translating for the German part was a great adventure, as it was the biggest translation I had done so far. Furthermore, all the historical places and names were a challenge, but also a lot of fun to look up and discuss with the other German translators for the best translation. I learned a lot about history and seeing the translated text in the game was amazing. Working this close with a dev was especially nice, as devs responded very quickly and tried to accommodate as much as they could a language that is generally 30% bigger than English. Not many devs are so helpful and not many teams are so nice to work with. It was a real pleasure to translate this game for German. I hope this game will bring many people a fun time when they can get lost in this ancient history.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4ecf51bf2ec224c6e8b8726764e6e5f2117b03a5.png)
Jeff (Salmon Arm, Canada) Content creator, proofreader, alpha tester
I got involved late in helping edit/rewrite the Aggressors: Ancient Rome manual and various English textual stuff, and moved on in the same capacity to Imperiums: Greek Wars, where I’ve taken up some game/scenario design and alpha-testing. I love paying attention to detail and casting a ‘critical eye’ on things, to ensure they seem logical and fit the genre, period, etc. – which means continuing to press the Devs to include Amazons!
Harley (Texas, USA) Alpha tester
My time with Imperiums: Greek Wars has been an absolute blast. (I review games for a living, so I know of which I speak. Plus, I've been playing PC games since the 1840s :) Since I got it relatively early, it had no manual. No problem whatsoever... because
1. I had played the hell out of their previous game Aggressors: Ancient Rome and
2. it's extremely easy to pick up and go, learning along the way. The game itself eases you in... without any kind of 'overwhelming' moments whatsoever.
Additionally, turn-based strategy is my main milieu, so I easily have more experience with this one specific genre than all other types of games, combined. Imperiums is the ultimate 'one-more-turn' game. Even with all of my experience, I found it extremely difficult to stop playing! Finally, it's also like an onion, in a way: the deeper you get into the game, the more layers you uncover. The other cliché I'll use is: "Easy to learn, hard to master". I never thought Kube Games could improve Aggressors. Although there are some differences and additions (mainly magical elements), Imperiums: Greek Wars is easily now one of my favorite games of all time.
Alex (Colorado, USA) Voice narrator
The voice creates form out of chaos and bridges the gaps between worlds.
I'm Spartacus (Toronto, Canada) Alpha tester
"Your rivals are scheming" at end turn was my most relevant contribution besides playtesting.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/b6a6ed019cb75371a36fb9295e96acf656ae3b76.png)
Mario (Buenos Aires, Argentina) Spanish translator
Hope this game get the players it deserves.
There are many others who participated in this project but wanted to stay anonymous. That however doesn’t mean that their contribution was less valuable to us!
Thank you all for your unrelenting support and real dedication, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you.
Do you want to join the ranks of our beta testers? Sign up for beta here http://imperiumsgame.com/apply-to-beta-test/
-
Micro blog 5 - Dangers of the sea
Sat, 2 May 2020
The realm of Poseidon hides many secrets, sea voyages
Do you imagine that life on a ship in the ancient times was a peaceful one? The deep blue swells of the Aegean Sea reflecting the hot Greek sun are inviting you to take a trip between the small islands of the eastern Mediterranean.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/946d6dab3183ba1001210c65db641a9ce1303316.png)
As a sailor however, you don’t only check on the sails and wind speed. You keep on the lookout for creatures and spirits that dwell in the realm of Poseidon. Don’t be fooled by their delicate appearance and beautiful signing, their beckoning might be as well the last thing the ship’s crew will ever see.
Groups of Sirens have been sighted in several places, always close to rocky shores. It is said that their singing makes the minds of men go crazy and then they lead their ships on the rocks where they find their death. If you can, sail far around and if you find yourself in their embrace, pray for your soul.
But not all creatures living in the sea are so dangerous. Nereids are fond of sailors and often provide help when it is needed. These sea nymphs possess power that allows them to improve the vessel to make it faster, stronger and more durable.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/11b706db5eb42d695c47684b76d5d4dc6c808d21.png)
It can often happen that when you seek one, you find the other but the sea hides many secrets and no help from the depths should be taken lightly.
-
Micro blog 6 - The lost freedom
Tue, 5 May 2020
Slaves in ancient Greece did not only come from barbarian lands. Conquerors also decided on the fate of the defeated.
Do you know the history of Sparta? After their defeat, they lost most of their helots (slave workers), a subsequent earthquake meant that there was nobody left who could rebuild and replenish their country. The Spartans still had a strong military presence (a threat to neighbors) however their economy was struggling badly to support the Spartan citizenry.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/9fddd13a5b519eca0c24235bccb9d156a4d34ac1.png)
This is a historical example and Imperiums is full of similar stories. Like it or not, most ancient societies were more or less dependent on slave workers and yours will be no different. Your economy will dwindle if you don’t find a way to bring new slaves into your labor force for work in farms, mines and households. But where to get this slave manpower which is in such high demand?
Trading slaves or building your own slave market often saves the situation, but sometimes neither of these options is possible. Then you need to do what the Spartans did, take foreign cities by force and enslave their populations. It doesn’t matter that they are Greeks, the ends justify the means.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/5f8e73d2e3e5a53491531ce253368250d2b5efb9.png)
No, it won’t win you first place in popularity contests. The newly conquered cities will both fear and hate you. Special care must be taken with these cities if you want them to grow into valuable contributors to your economy and social structure.
Do you show consciousness, or will you do what you must to make your country grow and prosper, even if it is on the backs of your own kin?
-
Micro blog 7 - Bandits on the trade routes
Mon, 11 May 2020
Vital supplies delivered by land or sea are exposed to pirates working for your enemies.
The Aegean Sea was criss-crossed with trading routes, galleys full of goods made port, which were then transferred by caravans overland to reach their inland destinations. As always where there are goods and money, there are bandits and marauders.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/ea8b42f1b1fc06fbcfed8c027b1c258922e0bdba.png)
Yes, your precious caravans can be intercepted by pirates stealing your badly needed resources, on land or at sea. Sometimes it’s small independent groups of bandits working alone. More often than not however, it can be your opponents trying to disrupt you by attacking a soft spot.
If you rely on regular supplies of certain resources through trading and these are suddenly cut off, this can significantly hurt your position. Trade deals might be cancelled because losses are too high, crippling your economy and impairing the readiness of your army.
You don’t know where they might strike, but some precautions can be taken to safeguard your supplies. Try to use the shortest and safest trade routes available and keep military units garrisoned along them.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/925df821a71026000924ef19deb6c261bb4a2213.png)
If you decide to employ these tactics yourself, be sure to use the best suited military units as bandits or pirates (look for high mobility and attack strength). To ensure the best possible odds of success, deploy them at locations where multiple trade routes congregate. Trade routes can be blocked by the deployment of units along borders or coastlines preventing traders from reaching their destination.
It’s not the most honorable warfare strategy but the end justifies the means, right?
-
Euboea
Thu, May 14, 2020
Euboea always sailed with the strongest but the winds are changing. Are you ready to steer the helm?
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4ec22688a7ebbcdaf16f893d046d1c9c35f25f45.png)
Tester’s tips
Euboea is an island lying just off the coast of Attica, big enough for couple of cities that provide a stable basis for your economy and military. It is a major trading partner to other Greek states and it can draw a lot of wealth from this. Trading also maintains friendly relations while the neighboring states are embroiled in bloody conflicts.
On the other hand, being on an island limits the opportunity for territorial gains. There are few islands that can be taken but any attempt to venture on to the mainland will necessarily lead to war. As you have all your military bases for recruitment on the island you must plan your first campaign very carefully. If you fail their wrath will turn against you.
As a member of the Delian league, you are strongly tied to Athens. In my opinion it is important to closely follow the developing relationships around you; a strong reliable partner who can back you up is essential.
I usually wait until one of the warring states starts crumbling and then I try to claim what is left of the dying nation. Once you have a foothold on the mainland, try to secure it before expanding as fast as you can. It will be in your hands to expand beyond your island’s limits.
-
Micro blog 8 - Olympics, moment of glory
Mon, 18 May 2020
Influence and gold await the best athletes in the world under the auspices of the Olympic games.
Is it possible to have a truce that binds all and everybody to hold their peace even in such a warmongering world as the ancient Greece? The year of the Olympic games was a special one. Not only that the ground of the games was sacred but all states felt privileged to send their best athletes to compete for the olive wreath.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/6f106a1b37537cdc09daae6d72eef8d222dfe263.png)
To honor the spirit of the games, all states are welcome to participate, even the dreaded barbarians and feared Persians. Of course, they all have to pay a heavy contribution to the organizers but winning means you bested the strongest, the fastest and the most agile.
Every four years this great competition takes place and if you can pay the entry fee, you can join the ranks of the best ones – even if only for a brief moment.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d94a8638987d152db0b384427c39af03a7972c27.png)
Victory in the Olympics is far more important than you might think. It is a matter of immense prestige not only for the sportsman himself but for his whole country and it is worth the extra spendings. Your reputation and influence will soar to the sky (not mentioning the solid pot of gold that will land in your coffers).
The Olympics give you a chance to stand out and shine.
-
Steam Extras
Fri, 22 May 2020
Imperiums: Greek Wars comes with a complete list of Steam treats.
As you all know, we planned to release Imperiums: Greek Wars in Spring 2020. Despite our best efforts to meet this deadline, we have been thwarted by a combination of the worldwide coronavirus crisis along with some unexpected issues. Regrettably we are forced to postpone the release until Summer 2020.
We want to assure you that we are still working hard towards the release and we have added some Steam features that you can look forward to. Thank you for your understanding.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/b7dddb831a933e1fccf6683c60d512ba99bd981e.png)
To show you that we have not been just sitting idle, we added some Steam features that you can look forward to. It might not be the highlight of the game development but still we wanted to make a small offering to our players and enhance the gaming experience with some Steam treats. Trading cards, Ironman mode and Achievements are all ready for Imperiums: Greek Wars!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/9f488abef6693dfdebabf16a094aaa147b611422.png)
Do you like collecting Trading Cards? As soon as the sales hit a critical level and Steam unlocks them, they will be there waiting for you. We selected the most handsome leaders ;) and the toughest ones - cuz you cannot say no to them! Handcrafted badges and emoticons will be of course part of the package as well as thematic backgrounds to decorate your profile with.
How about a hardcore game in Ironman mode? Test your strategic and tactical skills and don’t look back. We really tried hard to make the Ironman mode as cheat-proof as possible so Learn from your mistakes to eventually become an Imperiums hero!
And of course we haven’t forgotten the Steam Achievements either. There are some easy tasks to warm you up but Imperiums wants to bring out the best in you so prepare for some hard challenges, too! There are altogether 100 of them and some cannot be won by a chance but only by hard work and dedicated effort!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/2ba5a4eeda7fd90c74feca3c75da8e7930002623.png)
We strive to provide our players with everything they expect of us and more. Trading cards, Ironman mode or Achievements are the extra treats to make playing Imperiums even more rewarding and fun!
-
Micro blog 9 - Generals behind enemy lines
Tue, 26 May 2020
Stirring unrest in foreign cities is a powerful weapon in the arsenal of our brave Generals.
Generals are truly multifunctional units. One of their great strengths lies in their power to stir unrest in foreign cities.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence and local governors are often greedy opportunists who can be convinced to change sides, without the need to use force.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/eadc8177cbf404fae607eead1431a0fd12b4b08c.png)
Send a General to another country – friendly or enemy – he can provoke rebellious moods, bribe and persuade. The closer he is to the city, the more convincing are his arguments. If he is given enough time, he can be very successful in his mission, especially if the cities are already unhappy with their current management or government. Such a city can decide voluntarily to join your empire, without a drop of blood being spilled.
Naturally, such subversive behaviour will not go unnoticed by the foreign government so you should be careful not to expose your General too much. You can expect a decline in the relations of your countries and it is up to you to decide if one or two cities is worth the risk of making yourself another enemy. But the General is ready to serve you!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/985809d9cbc50c0a642828a797e3a05d9db0a7de.png)
However, even the brave General is not immune to bribery. The more powerful he becomes, the more proud and unbending he will be and such a man can be easily swayed to switch sides. Don’t take the loyalty of your great commanders for granted!
-
Faction Highlights – Western Greece
Fri, 29 May 2020
Western city-states are a still backwater but their ambitions might create ripples with far-reaching consequences.
Embark on a journey through the lands of western Hellas, home of Amphotherus, our guide through the realm of Imperiums: Greek Wars. We will visit the merchanting power of Korkyra, semi-barbaric Molossians, peaceful Akarnania and quarrelsome Aetolia.
https://youtu.be/gp4TW9sG7Wo
-
Micro blog 10 - Listen to the wise men
Tue, 2 June 2020
Knowledge is a powerful thing. Let it serve your political purposes in the hands of your wise men.
Ancient Greece is not only known for never ending wars and conquests. It is the cradle of civilization; natural curiosity, creativity and wisdom of its philosophers shaped the way we see the world today.
When a wise man comes to your lands and offers his services and loyalty, don’t discard the opportunity with a simple wave of your hand. Sages can be very powerful in their subtle ways.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/36cc73431cbbd802fd9f9f807d1f8408add61003.png)
Sages can found new philosophical schools in your cities, thus boost the production of knowledge and influence in your lands, increasing your power base. You will be able to research new technologies sooner, gaining an advantage over your opponents. Your increased influence and prestige might persuade foreign cities near your borders that the grass is greener in your kingdom.
You can also send Sages to other countries to gift foreign scientists one of the new technologies. This inexpensive gesture of goodwill goes a long way in expanding your circle of friends and allies.
Equally, you can send a Sage to a foreign city to build a philosophy school. This new school could be politically active on your behalf or neutral. You could secretly support opposition against the current government in the city or otherwise. Hurting your opponents while actually “helping” him by building a school of wisdom is crafty! A simple but effective gift that will strengthen the bonds between your states, or not, the choice is yours...
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/7e1d2717842ec4f63145d784177a1c6c56d78e6b.png)
Last but not least, you can use your Sages to build a Seer that allows you to peek through the fog of war for a brief moment, spying on your neighbors through the invisible eye.
Power doesn’t just come through brutal force. Learn to use the Sage’s subtle ways to strengthen your position both on the inside and the outside of your country.
-
Elis
Sun, 7 June 2020
Even minor Greek city-states dream of a great future. Would you dare to take the oath to make this dream true?
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1038590077194696124/A9E2DD3C8522268BCA11DE4556D518C575750201/)
Tester’s tips
Elis is a very small state squeezed into the western corner of Peloponnese. Its size is limiting for growth and army build up, especially on higher difficulties, it is extremely hard to stay afloat economically and politically.
Although most of its neighbours are similarly small and weak, the whole Peloponnese is like a pack of wolves and if you show any sign of weakness, everyone will want to take a bite.
My advice is to try to get one of the neighbours (I usually go for Arkadia and Sparta) to sign a military pact and then join them once they spill over the border of the less lucky nations on Peloponnese. It is often Messenia who gets to be beaten first but the trick is to be faster than your military ally and conquer the strategically most important points before them (e.g. mines).
Be sure that in this location, you cannot stay out of war for long.
-
Micro blog 11 - Divide and conquer
Tue, 9 June 2020
Divide spheres of influence and share the burden of war campaigns with your allies.
In a world where war is like the daily bread, being able to defeat all of your enemies alone is unlikely. Find friends and allies with common interests and use these bonds to advance your expansionist plans.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d618f2a34e69fa6182776aee49f5c3e65f30a1f4.png)
Don’t fall for the beginner’s mistake of feeling strong and invincible, even if everything is going well for you, plans almost never work out the way you want them to. Did you envision a quick assault on strategic positions, mines and cities taken, enemy forces divided and the swift demise of your opponent? Good in theory, but more often than not, you will find yourself bogged down in a war of attrition going nowhere because the enemy simply won’t give up and fights you to the last man.
Rather, unite your allies and partners against your opponents. Let them cooperate in your military plans and divide the spheres of influence in enemy territory between you. With goals agreed in advance and multiple attacks at different locations you will keep your enemy off balance. Also, you won’t have to carry the whole burden of the military campaign alone, war is an expensive and lengthy endeavor and can deplete your resources to the brink of collapse, despite the spoils of war.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4db4c536e9cadb2f791925a50bd95ccb46267529.png)
You’ll have to cede few rich cities and strategic locations to your allies to make the dangerous war campaign worth their risk, but it might make the conquest of enemy lands faster, saving precious men and resources.
Don’t be too greedy. The Imperiums world knows no mercy and will punish every one of your mistakes. Divide and conquer .. that’s the motto of victors.
-
Micro blog 12 - Trading good relations
Mon, 15 June 2020
Excess resources can be utilized as gifts to your strategic allies.
The world of Imperiums: Greek Wars is volatile but with clever politics and side dealing you can outsmart even the great states of Athens, Sparta or Macedon.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/b0d56ed313ff029859a982d517cb0f267bf43c07.png)
Nurturing good relations with your allies is the key. Don’t think that they will love you for your beautiful eyes, nothing, least of all their reliability comes for free. However, there are a number of little things that you can do to keep them on your side and show them that you care.
Check from time to time to see if they need additional resources, especially those that you can easily spare. Send these resources as presents now and again with no strings attached. Have they just come through a recent war and now need to repair their border cities? Send them wood and stone to help them re-build their settlements. They will appreciate your concern and if you have provided something they really need, your value as an ally in their eyes will increase greatly. It can go further than just improving cordial relationships, you can cement mutual trust and tie them to you with bonds of true friendship.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/2d1d060b53809338700ee9ef8e267fad3acf0269.png)
Perhaps it seems romantic but the AI knows all about honor and respect!
-
First preview streams on Sunday June 28!
Sun, 21 June 2020
Tune in on Sunday June 28 to watch preview streams with Nookrium and Writing Bull.
The long wait for the first real glimpse of Imperiums: Greek Wars is over – the time is here!
The big announcement is coming up in a few days and we want to celebrate this great milestone with two fantastic streamers, who will show previews of the game.
Tune in on Sunday, June 28!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/938b69011f3b83f231b229c395419124d0236fd5.png)
Nookrium, a veteran strategy game player will give it a go for the English-speaking audience in his regular show on Sunday 5:30 UTC (Saturday 22:30 PDT) on his Twitch channel
twitch.tv/nookriumtv and Youtube channel youtube.com/user/NeptunesNookGames.
Writing Bull, a star of the strategy game streaming scene in Germany will stream from Sunday 13:00 UTC (15:00 CEST) at twitch.tv/writing_bull and youtube.com/user/TheWritingBull. Two of our beta testers, Linus and Max will be guests on his show to share insights and talk about the background of last stages of the development!
Don’t miss it! Our main developer will be in the chat and ready to answer all your questions!
Live on Twitch on Sunday, June 28
Nookrium at 10:30 PM PDT - 6.30 AM BST - 2.30 AM EDT
Writing Bull at 3 PM CEST - 9 AM EDT - 6 AM PDT
-
Micro blog 13 - Unwanted General
Mon, 29 June 2020
Powerful Generals may become too ambitious. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating their threat to your throne.
Being quite autonomous gives the Generals a sense of their own importance and power. It is in human nature to always want more. Stronger Generals who have already accumulated some experience execute their orders with better results, but with every new success they become more confident and hungry for power.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4c9ccdde4c208287629d5c432fd74d08ad3d2ab3.png)
Their success and importance goes hand in hand with decreasing loyalty towards their master and can (and often does) lead to mutiny that results in General’s desertion or the usurping of power in part of your empire. He could make himself the leader of a new faction that will stirr unrest and cause troubles right in your own backyard.
Don’t let your Generals grow over your head. Keep them on a short leash and if they show signs of disloyalty, pull them back from their mission and keep them on standby for a while to curb their ambitions. If that doesn’t help, a radical decision might be needed. Giving an order to kill the rebelling General won’t win you popularity among the ordinary soldiers, especially if they are asked to murder a man they admire. It might be tricky to walk the line between loyalty to the emperor and the country on one hand and respect and love to a brave commander on the other. A strong General could easily persuade his assassins to follow him instead of you!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/53581f02b1d782d2f900dad5861c9f263f9eeffb.png)
You want experienced and powerful Generals to help you keep the morale of troops high and support your action behind enemy lines, but a radical action might be needed if his strong will becomes a danger to your throne.
-
Imperiums: Greek Wars will launch on July 30!
Fri, 3 July 2020
Finally, the waiting is over! Imperiums: Greek Wars is ready to launch.
https://youtu.be/fbv4CVyWvf8
It has been a long journey, full of hard work and challenges but also with loads of fun especially since the first alpha players got their hands on the game. So many great ideas have been tested and implemented to give the game what we feel is a very unique mix of classical 4X features and adventure elements that make the game more engaging, more creative and definitely more fun.
https://youtu.be/m7IEOORZ3HY
After months of beta testing and balancing we are now ready for the last phase – release. Set your alarm clocks to July 30 and make sure you have enough sleep because the “one more turn” feel will not let you take a break!
First preview streams done by Nookrium
https://youtu.be/0fATkdJhJFs
and Writing Bull (German) are already online so check them out!
https://youtu.be/Kld2LjWzaeg
-
Spotlight - History and mythology
Tue, 7 July 2020
Join our adventurers on their travels through the legendary realms of ancient Greece.
One of our primary goals was to make the game as historically accurate as possible. The detailed map of Greece with its cities and initial factions, along with their relationships, was based on thorough research and historical sources.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/857cc53215554b1695fa23587226ce80e3cd2757.png)
With the creation of the first Imperiums scenario structure, it occurred to us that the Greeks themselves populated their world with strange beasts and creatures from their myths and legends. These were not just fairytales for children but deeply rooted beliefs of the ancient peoples. They are an important part of Greek cultural heritage, so the inclusion of this mythical layer of the ancient worldview within the game seemed obvious. It also had the potential to greatly enhance the classical 4X genre and the player experience. Often in 4X games a player may only use a small portion of the map and may never see the full extent of the world. Creating side quests for the player around the myths and legends would allow the exploration of all corners of the world making the whole map part of the game.
To begin with we introduced several mythical creatures to the game. The witch Kirke, the sea roaming Sirens and Nereids, Naiads, the water spirits, or the centaur Chiron, the trainer of heroes. Each of these creatures has its own place in the game. Some are always helpful and seeking them out brings rewards and benefits, others are unpredictable in their ways and a visit to them carries certain risks.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/98daa1058f3c0647d6e41feda11350e137239820.png)
Some of them are permanently fixed in their map location and remain static within game. Others, such as the Sorcerer who dwells in the deep northern woods, or the Sirens who lure sailors and ships onto sharp rocks, may move around the map. It makes all travel potentially more dangerous, because these creatures are not visible to you until you run across them on the map but... such was life in ancient times. However in order not to frustrate you too much, you will be warned if one of your units finds itself too close to one of these creatures, providing you with an opportunity to avoid the lurking danger. The locations of many of the creatures will vary with each new game.
Following on, we realized that some of these creatures were privy to important secrets. It was at this point that we started to think about including quests for legendary treasures. You all probably know the stories of the Golden Fleece, the Girdle of Hippolyte or the famous Gordian Knot.
This however led us to yet another important decision. We had to create specialized units to undertake these adventures, thus Heroes and Generals were born. Both are highly mobile units with a number of interesting traits.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/8e364cffecf3ab0bc9ca13ae71695021ab8c2e65.png)
Heroes are pure adventurers, their sole purpose is to roam the world undertaking quests, seeking treasures and visiting foreign capitals. Throughout their travels they gain experience and when they are seasoned enough they can be promoted to Generals.
Generals are more advanced multifunctional units. On top of everything Heroes can do, Generals have two powerful functions. They can encourage your troops to increase their fighting spirit and morale and they can use their influence and reputation to persuade foreign cities to defect to your faction (friendly or enemy). Note: We will dedicate a future Spotlight exclusively to Heroes and Generals.
It is important to note, that both the mythological and quest layers are completely optional.
This design decision takes into account the fact that many of our core fans are true history buffs who will enjoy the historical accuracy of the game without any need for myths, legends or quests. At the beginning of each new game the player can decide whether to include them or not, it is simple as that.
We hope you enjoy these myths, legends and quest adventures, we can‘t wait to hear your feedback about them!
-
Dardania
Sun, 12 July 2020
Dardanians will have to pay with blood for the lands they claim. Are you brave enough to lead them to their final battle?
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1325697898862078711/05441FC41B900DF08C9CF645D02A9F6BD1D11E21/)
Tester’s tips
The Dardanian Kingdom borders Macedonia. From the beginning they must struggle to grow the kingdom against Macedonia's ambitions. Defend the borders? Take the fight to the enemy's territory?
Or try desperately to seek peaceful coexistence, in order to make the land prosper? I enjoy the early choices that the Dardanian's must make.
-
Spotlight - War campaigns
Tue, 14 July 2020
Diplomacy and peacemaking versus military conquest, two sides of the coin that might pave your way to victory.
Diplomacy and war go hand in hand. It is wise to explore all options for peaceful cooperation and to be careful who you choose as an enemy.
Imperiums offers many options for forging close diplomatic ties between countries. Strong relationships and friendships based on mutual treaties, pacts and unions between states can lead to fruitful cooperation. These ties require skilled diplomacy and time to succeed; gaining the trust of your opponents is just the first step in the process.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/e9471b115383f00780f2e833a36a7bbcfb5f1e3b.png)
There are several minor treaties of limited impact - if these can be agreed, trust will improve. As this trust develops, more complex and binding treaties come into play, such as the passage of foreign troops through your territory or the agreement to heal injured and damaged foreign units in your cities and facilities. Eventually you may even agree to the mutual support of troops with supplies. This can extend the reach of your supply lines into new areas that are ripe for expansion.
Trading is one of the best ways to cement mutual relationships. This is especially effective if you can strategically support your ally with their resource shortfalls. These trading inter dependencies create close bonds between states and are much appreciated by the AI.
You can assume the role of peacemaker by requesting that two warring states forget their differences and sign peace. You will be the good guy here even if you have selfish motives (e.g. you need both states open their lands for your trade routes).
You can also request that one state declares war on a third party. It is particularly useful to open hostilities on a new front with your enemy. However, strong demands like these, even if obeyed, may hinder your efforts to improve goodwill and develop partnerships.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/63bb3f29a2f1d194d12ebbc1e8cb24d0ef00524b.png)
A more subtle way of forwarding your goals, at the expense of your neighbors (friends and foes alike), is the use influence in foreign cities. Local governors can be bribed and persuaded to defect, their city becomes yours without the rattle of swords. In foreign territory your Generals can incite city revolts that distract the rulers, in a best case scenario the city may even surrender to you without a fight. Cities that defect come without damage and the immediate transfer of resources, population and territory will be a boost to you and a heavy blow to your opponent. Using influence will definitely not make you many friends but it is certainly a useful way of weakening your enemies!
When it comes to war, old injustices resurface, leading to conflicts that can draw in the entire world. History teaches us that the ancient Greeks could not maintain peace for long periods.
Imperiums will test your strategic and tactical skills to their limits. Wars are expensive and very few end quickly with only minor damage and losses. Planning ahead might save you time and effort, not to mention the lives of civilians and soldiers. Prepare, have your state’s resources and population in as healthy a condition as possible. Specialize and train your units according to the terrain they will be deployed in and the actions they will have to perform (e.g. city raiders, pathfinders, etc.).
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/fd5a0f925396112de696eee8c4c5a0b50fd6a57a.png)
Planning a military campaign is not only about building and deploying troops though. Careful attention must be given to supply lines at all times. When invading, be sure not to overreach with your armies, too far and you risk your supply lines being severed and your units stranded and cut off. Starving and injured units are much more likely to desert their command and defect to the enemy!
You will also need to keep a wary eye on the home front; any dissatisfaction along with the lack of local garrison units may encourage rebellious factions.
Agreeing on a military campaign with your allies allows you to plan attacks from multiple directions, dividing the enemy forces to make victory more likely. Joint military campaigns allow you to plan which troops will attack, alongside the timing and location of the attack.
You will need to master diplomatic skills, strategic planning and tactics if you want to survive and grow to greatness in Imperiums!
-
Where game meets history
Thu, 16 July 2020
Imperiums: Greek Wars is a sponsor of the historical documentaries channel Kings and Generals.
Making a historical game requires a lot of research, especially when you strive to make the game accurate, yet interesting and enjoyable and most importantly, immersive for the player.
We have been following the King and Generals channel for a long time and used their series on ancient Greece as one of our sources of information. We drew inspiration, as well as many useful facts from their series, that helped us shape our game. From there, it was only a small step for us to become proud sponsors of one of their videos covering the epoch of Philip II of Macedon. Here we are.
https://youtu.be/ABS1iepXG0U
Here is the story of Demosthenes and Philip. An Athenian politician who led the resistance against Philip’s and later Alexander’s growing power over the rest of the Greek city-states and how he failed to stop the Macedonian rise to dominance.
-
Narrative launch trailer
Tue, 21 July 2020
The release is a week away so whet your appetite with this narrative launch trailer.
The release of Imperiums: Greek Wars is coming closer and to whet your appetite in anticipation of next week, here is the narrative launch trailer.
https://youtu.be/mGTlTHYs8y4
Philip’s brother Perdiccas was killed in a battle and the way is open for Philip to ascend the throne and lead his nation to the great vision of his dreams. His mentor and teacher Epaminondas is giving him his last advice for this life journey.
If you missed the drama of the battle, you can see it here
https://youtu.be/fbv4CVyWvf8
To celebrate the upcoming release we will also do a string of preview streams in multiple languages so stay tuned and spread the word far and wide!
-
Spotlight - Heroes and Generals
Wed, 22 July 2020
Learn to use your Heroes and Generals to make the whole map your playground.
The troops need a commander they can trust and venerate as a man of great courage and morality. There are two special units that act as symbols of honor, prestige and brave adventures – Heroes and Generals.
Heroes rise out of battle when certain unit distinguishes itself against the odds. This new Hero is a non-conflict unit with great mobility. This makes him perfect for exploring foreign lands and seeking adventure on dangerous quests. He is not limited to your territory only; on the contrary, he is able to travel safely through any friendly or neutral lands. He can even venture into enemy territory, however there is a danger of him being attacked or killed there.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/adc80ed0bffdbc1e170fb2044975764fa82b0aaf.png)
When at home, he is welcomed everywhere, his presence increases local happiness as people cheer the famous adventurer.
By traveling the world and hunting hidden treasures he makes a contribution to the state’s wealth and by doing so he slowly grows into a man who can take on bigger responsibilities. Completing treasure hunts and quests for legendary artifacts, encountering mythical creatures and visiting foreign capitals are all ways of learning for him.
He gains experience through all these adventurous travels and when he reaches maximum experience, he earns the right to be promoted to a General. If you ignore this desire for more power, you may lose the Hero’s loyalty and risk his defection to another faction. Better if you call him back home and make a great show of promoting the man to be one of the highest commanders of your state.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/dcf4851b14189cfd3a03c95eb0e2108bb1f8812b.png)
Generals are more advanced units, a multitude of attributes and traits make them extremely useful for advancing your plans in many different ways.
They are able to seek hidden riches, but as men of military power they are not welcome in foreign lands. Without the protection of the treaty for unit movements there is a risk that he will be killed as a persona non grata, even if you are not at war with the foreign state.
They are much better use closer to home. They can accompany troops at the battlefront to encourage them and boost their fighting spirit. This increases the troops’ morale which may have a significant impact on the outcome of the following battles.
They can also be sent abroad on secret missions to foreign states. Using their reputation and prestige they may be able to persuade the governors of foreign cities to defect to your empire, thus you can gain a city without a drop of blood being spilled. This is a way of expanding your territory without an official war declaration. However, such actions will not go unnoticed, there will definitely be a deterioration in the relationship that you have with the affected state. Still, it is a powerful way of weakening existing or potential enemies.
You should be extremely careful when sending your General to foreign territories, the risk of attack and death are real. The loss of a General has a terrible impact on the morale of your armies that could have fatal consequences in subsequent battles.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/b2c8b0f8dbd30ca93c69fd8637826ac835a0fb5b.png)
The effectiveness of a General in encouraging troops and inciting rebellions in foreign cities is dependent upon his experience; the more experienced he is the more impact he will have. However, with this knowledge of power comes the desire to rule. His morale and loyalty to you decreases as he becomes more powerful. He may reach a point where he will desert you, or start a revolution in one of your regions to set up his own kingdom. If a revolution occurs there is a good chance that the newly established kingdom will consist of lands taken both from you and the neighboring states.
A General’s loyalty to you will decrease more the further away from your capital he is; a spell in your capital city may restore some loyalty. If a General becomes too dangerous to risk a revolution you can send assassins from your own units to kill him. However if they should fail, the risk you are facing from the General will multiply.
Generals are very powerful units that can serve you well, but they may become too powerful and challenge even you. Do not underestimate the will of one man to rule!
-
Preview streams I.
Thu, 23 July 2020
Check out one or more of the upcoming streams and videos of Imperiums: Greek Wars.
Imperiums: Greek Wars will be released in a few days and it is time to show it off to the whole world.
There will be a string of videos and streams in various languages, so buckle your seat belts, the ride is about to start.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/3ddfc3b0fe74438c6b01b77ceb6dd3b67f06ac60.png)
Lord Lambert (ENG), scarred in many epic battles of this genre, will stream the game live on Sunday, July 26 at 8PM BST. His sidekick will be Lucie from the dev team! Tune in here youtube.com/user/Lambert2191
Steinwallen (DE), a strategy veteran of the German gaming scene will start his daily walkthrough series on Friday, July 24 at 10am CEST and will continue until release day on his Youtube channel youtube.com/user/Steinwallen
Dan Field (FR), a tireless gaming explorer hunting for new gems, will show the game to the French speaking audience on Wednesday, July 29 at 12 noon CEST. Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/c/DanFieldGaming
Here is the schedule in a nutshell
Friday, July 24
Steinwallen (DE) – daily walkthroughs at 10 AM CEST – 8 AM UTC
Sunday, July 26
Lord Lambert (ENG) at 8PM BST – 7PM UTC – 12PM PDT
Wednesday, July 29
Dan Field (FR) at 12 noon CEST – 10 AM UTC
-
Live in Czech on Tuesday!
27 07 2020
Don't miss the first live stream of the game in Czech by Vortex.
On Tuesday at 5PM CEST we will play Imperiums: Greek Wars live for the first time for our Czech and Slovak fans at Vortex studio.
The guys from Vortex invited the main developer Pavel who will be ready to provide help and explanations. Don't miss this great opportunity to learn more about the game, its mechanics and features. The chat will be open for questions so take your chance!
Tuesday July 28 at 5PM CEST here - Vortex!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d73426e18a87f387008bb643aaca2aa9cb7ac352.png)
This is not our first time at Vortex studio. If you want to check out our previous interview from April, take a look here.
https://youtu.be/u2xBrMEO5sU
-
Game Manual
Mon, 27 July 2020
First bite for the impatient – the Game Manual is available now for all fans.
The launch of the game is only 3 days away and we can feel your fingers tingling with impatience so here is a little taste of what’s coming!
The Game Manual (https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/manuals/GameManual.pdf?t=1595859743) is an extensive source of information where you should find explanations, hints and advice. It is divided into sections and text is accompanied by screenshots and references so that you can move sections with a simple click.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/f32f27f207ee8d47056acbe81636a99988c1de31.png)
Learn all about the main features and mechanics, such as Generals, Quests and Military Campaigns as well as the historical background and much more.
Needless to say though that we love open discussions so feel welcome to share your ideas and opinions on our forums and Discord!
IMPORTANT: If you visit our website (http://imperiumsgame.com/) after launch on 30th July at 2PM UTC, you will find a pleasant surprise there ;)
Set your alarm clocks, the ancient world is waiting for you to take command!
-
Spotlight - Custom Worlds
Tue, 28 July 2020
Discover the joy of playing on a map tailored to your preferences and share it with others.
We are proud of our campaign map of ancient Greece. Many hours went into the research and creation of the map with all of its details and aspects. Although you can play as almost 30 factions that ensure a different player experience with every new game, we know the deep rooted desire that sleeps in all of us to explore and colonize new worlds, to face the unknown.
The Map Generator that comes with the base game allows you to generate new worlds tailored to your preferences. For your new world, the settings allow you to select the size of the map and the prevalent climate (which also affects the terrain). To populate the world the number and density of the individual civilizations can be set, as well as their level of development.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/655ad2aaee9c0f45efa042a659f8d60a7a6c4774.png)
The level of development setting allows you a number of starting choices. At the two extremes of the scale, you have, either a start as a basic nomadic society, roaming the wilderness, exploring and building your first villages, or if slow starts are not for you, ready established, developed civilizations, with urban infrastructure, economic and cultural buildings already in place. So the start point for your journey towards your new kingdom is completely up to you.
You can also tweak two aspects of how fair the game will be. You can make the world relatively level, so everyone has more or less the same starting conditions or you can create significant differences between the nations right from the start. In addition you can also choose where on that scale you want your own nation to be. Do you want to have an advantage or the most challenging conditions? You can choose how you want to play, take it easy using a world with many differences, with your nation at the top of the pile, or play as the nation with the least advantageous starting conditions, to see if you can make it to the top, beat fate and prove your worth however you please.
You can set the abundance or scarcity of the resource mines on the map. This greatly affects all player’s abilities to develop their nations and sets the tone for the frequency and brutality of the conflicts over resources. Winning the struggle for survival is dependent on key resources and you can decide in advance how tough this challenge will be.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d0c75a8a06ba02a4d3bbeda16e89ea6e9f8f407a.png)
Alongside these settings come the diplomatic relationships. You can set how friendly or aggressive the neighbours will be.
The presence of neutral cities on the map is also optional. These are not simply idle settlements waiting for you to take over. They spawn settlers to colonize the lands around and military units to defend themselves. They build and improve their city-states as any other nation would do and they will not give up their independence without a proper fight!
Few available resources, crowded map, aggressive neighbours, you will be plunged into a merciless battle for survival from turn one. But of course, this is the only way for masochistic hardcore gamers. For the rest of us you can tune the game in all of the aspects mentioned above and still enjoy the game at the pace you like. This doesn’t mean that there will be no challenges, but you will have time to adjust to the changing conditions.
You can also use these custom generated maps in multiplayer or use them to build your own scenarios and mods. Speaking about moddability, the game has an open architecture which allows for easy modding.
The game comes with a Map Builder which allows you to use an image of a standard map (e.g. one downloaded from the internet), and turn it into a game map. The tool allows you to cut out parts of the map, adjust the size of the final map and define terrains and contours.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/47b661beee25dcd23af771c897dfe8d41b0558f1.png)
If you want to create a world, tile by tile, yourself, you can do this as well. There is an in-built Game Editor that helps you change the map and its settings and values directly. Change the landscape and shape the coast, place new cities, mines and buildings on the map, add rivers and roads, add factions and define their mutual relations, economic and military power, and much more. You are designer and creator, only your desires set the limit.
The dedicated Steam Workshop and forum are there for you to share your creations and inspire others to build wonderful new scenarios for all to enjoy! Did you play an interesting game that you want to share? Upload the save to the Steam Workshop directly from the game. Have you created a nice new scenario or are you working on a mod that you want feedback on? Give access to your creations to others through the workshop.
As well as the many hours of fun you will get from Imperiums’ Greek campaign map, you will be surprised how many worlds can be created, endless re-playability! The custom Map Generator, Map Builder and Game Editor with the integrated Steam Workshop make sure that you will not leave the Imperiums realm unsatisfied.
-
Recent preview streams
Wed, 29 July 2020
Have you missed any of the recent preview streams? They are all listed here.
Thanks to many fantastic youtubers and streamers, the game has now been shown in all the languages in which the game is available. If you missed any of these, choose the one you like and watch it now!
Lord Lambert (ENG) streamed the tutorial of the game together with Lucie from the dev team. You can find the stream here - https://www.youtube.com/Lambert2191
https://youtu.be/QaobqSWJptw
Steinwallen (DE) made a series of intro videos playing as Macedonia and you can watch them all here - https://www.youtube.com/Steinwallen
https://youtu.be/ybPx9mWwfZU
Dan Field (FR) decided to make his attempt as Sparta and you can watch his intro video here - http://www.youtube.com/c/DanFieldGaming
https://youtu.be/WPImBzEfuXo
Chiches (ES) introduced the game in a video and live stream on his channel and it is all available here - https://www.youtube.com/ChichesTH
https://youtu.be/w8WWXvQUQQk
Katarhont (RU) tried the game together with Vitali from the dev crew and later took up the challenge himself, and you can take a look here - https://www.youtube.com/TheKatarhont
https://youtu.be/LhBDcrUg0OA
Vortex (CZ) hosted Pavel, the game’s main dev, and together they presented the basics of the game here - https://www.youtube.com/Vortexczech
https://youtu.be/A2D1JBhWTA0
Enjoy the preview streams and please leave them all some likes and comments for their great intros!
-
Imperiums: Greek Wars is to be released today.
30 July 2020
For owners of our previous title Aggressors: Ancient Rome we plan a little gift in the way of 20% discount.
Just start the Steam version of Aggressors on your computer and click on the link below the menu. This offer is limited so don’t wait too long!
Anyone else can purchase the game on our website with 10% discount here http://imperiumsgame.com/purchase/
By buying the game on our website, you will not only claim a discount, but you will also support our dev team directly. The purchase is realized via the Humble Bundle widget which is a secure worldwide game distribution channel, on completion you will receive a valid Steam key. We would greatly appreciate it if you decide to use this way to purchase the game but of course you can also buy it on Steam and later also on Games Planet.
-
Imperiums: Greek Wars released!
Thu, 30 July 2020
The game has been released and is available online.
Hello everyone!
We are happy to share some great news with you - Imperiums: Greek Wars has just been released.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d25732badb7dffe56f9e68ea73ff6b4e4649d1d3.png)
For our loyal fans who already own a Steam version of our previous game, Aggressors: Ancient Rome, we have a nice surprise! Just start Aggressors once again and see for yourself ;) But don’t wait too long, it will not last forever!
You can also purchase the game on our website, by doing so you will support the dev team directly and at the same time you will be able to claim a discount! http://imperiumsgame.com/purchase/
Are you not convinced yet? Here are some of the unique features that raise our game above the crowd:
• the biggest map of ancient Greek world ever made in this genre
• dynamic empire expansion
• treacherous diplomacy
• praised AI
• endless number of lively custom worlds
• endless number of lively custom worlds
• ancient mythology elements
We would like to thank you for the support and encouragement that made the finishing of the game possible. We welcome any ideas, suggestions and opinions so feel free to share them on our Steam forum or Discord https://discord.com/invite/hq9NC5Q
And don’t forget! If you like the game, tell your friends. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and we are very fond of our growing gaming community.
Yours,
Kube Games team
-
Version 1.0.2. (Patch)
Fri, 31 July 2020
Hello everyone,
we will try to always inform you about changes done in the new update.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/f1165b4b1988eb30a4b85dde70184c70206aff84.png)
We have received some interesting ideas and feedback which we will eventually look into but the first thing is the stability of the game for everyone.
The game proves to be stable, yet there have been a few PCs experiencing issues.
This update tries to address the most annoying ones and other fixes should follow soon.
Hopefully you enjoy the game. For those who were experiencing issues (especially during startup), please give this version a try.
-
Version 1.0.3. (Patch)
Sun, 2 August 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/e5f09b7a80705a944127bd3f5b2552df14abd3b9.png)
Hello,
another few issues related to pretty rare crashes were fixed. For those who were still experiencing issues in version 1.0.2. (especially during startup), please give this version a try.
If you still experience problems during startup in version 1.0.3. please contact us directly. We will do our best to fix it with you.
-
Version 1.0.4. (Patch)
Tue, 4 August 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/ceabe5426212092838c49d34f8d5d3d7e1be6f0e.png)
Hello,
first small new features added!
We have hopefully fixed another several (yet rare) startup issues. If you still had problems with this, please try the new version. If you experience any issues, please share them with us on Discord or Steam Forum and if an error window pops up, send us a report. This considerably increases chance that it will be fixed in the next version!
We have added a special button "Fix issue(s)" to the launcher displayed in case of a startup problem. If you are unable to start the game and launcher shows this button, please click on the button and try to start the game again.
New feature(s) added:
• New feature in mouse game settings adjusting mouse delay of edge scrolling was added.
-
Version 1.0.5. (Patch)
Thu, 6 August 2020
Hello!
Two days from the last update and we are back yet with another one :)
We could release all that in one update batch but we want to address the major issues as soon as possible so that those of your experiencing problems are not kept waiting for too long.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/7dfed08b6db9cf30de544e873d8b93dc33485141.png)
New feature(s) added:
• The most important change is the decreased time tresholds for unlocking factions in the campaign map.
I tried to explain our reasons for implementing the lock and we still believe it is a good solution. However, many of you felt the required game time is too long and so we considerably lowered the time limit. First factions should start unlocking already when you go through tutorial (or take your first steps in the game). Note that it might unlock some new factions in the campaign map right after you start the game. https://steamcommunity.com/app/1183470/discussions/0/2788243698214128363/#c2788243698215480597
• Issue with shovel holes staying on the map forever was fixed.
• UI scaling issue of faction names in the history replay window was fixed.
• There are some improvements of the launcher.
• Several very rare issues causing crashes were either fixed or narrowed which will allow us to finally fix them soon.
I would like to repeat once again that if you still experience any issues, please share them with us on Discord or Steam Forum and if an error window pops up, send us a report.
We also announced a bug hunt of the most annoying left bugs. Please help us to make Imperiums even better!
-
Version 1.0.6. (Patch)
Sat, 8 August 2020
Hello!
We have just released a small update addressing few minor issues found in the last few days.
We also have a small treat for our players coming very soon so stay tuned!
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/46e3d0dd6ee91c59ae25bc863b4f6a0b4ca33387.png)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• Some victory Steam achievements were not fired.
• Tweaks of diplomacy offers sent to AI.
• UI scaling issue of action buttons was fixed.
• Rare CTD was fixed.
• Issue causing that buildings like Seer, Mausoleum or Memorial could not be taken.
• Changes in Russian, French and German localizaton texts.
Still experiencing issues during the game? Please share them with us on Discord or Steam Forum and if an error window pops up, send us a report.
-
Spotlight - Trading and Economy
Mon, 10 August 2020
There are many factors that affect your state’s economy and finding the right balance is a skill to master!
Building an empire is not only a matter of powerful armies and conquest. Prosperity and stability stand on the ability to produce sufficient resources to cover the needs of a growing empire.
Management of resource production and their usage rates is of paramount importance to you. This is not all only about sufficient mine production, there are many modifiers that may curb production levels.
Slaves are indispensable to the state economy. Ancient states were often dependent on their slave workforce. A balance is required as too few slaves will negatively affect production, whereas too many can increase tensions in society and bring unhappiness.
Every society and system of government has its own attitude and requirement regarding slaves. This is reflected in the ratio between slaves and citizens, there is an ideal ratio to aim for with each government type.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/c4311ff84a003f7cc29a2d05b5622976b399c88c.png)
There are a few slave markets that exist on the campaign map and the states that control them have a
great advantage over other players. There is the potential to create new slave markets once the appropriate technology has been obtained. However until that time you will likely be dependent on trading other valuable resources to obtain slaves.
Another option for obtaining slaves is through conquest; you are able to enslave some of the local population of defeated cities. However, this has its setbacks as it reduces the loyalty and happiness in the region still further. You can hardly win trust wielding a whip.
Territories are another important modifier in calculating resource production. Full or majority ownership of a territory maximizes the resource production of all map items within this territory (mines and tiles alike), whereas owning only small portion of a territory reduces production. This should be an element in your calculations when conquering foreign lands; complete territories are more valuable than partial conquests. The bonus or penalty for territories if further affected by selected game difficulty.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/70dffd92ad40880ed2df39192a53949d8915bf12.png)
Infrastructure and improvements also factor in to resource production; aim for better roads and upgraded blacksmiths to increase production.
Trade is extremely important for maintaining a stable economy. It also has the added bonus of forging closer relationships with other states as long standing trade deals cement partnerships. An occasional gift will only strengthen these bonds.
To build national development and military strength you are reliant on a steady increase in the size of your cities populations. Empty lands are of no use to your empire; without a thriving population fields will not be sown and reaped, new cities will not be built, resource production and trading will be limited.
Above all, you need a thriving population to fill the ranks of your state’s administration, advisors and of
course the military.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/47e39ab16e5920a5b5af70ea32ff78eff56d1460.png)
However, population growth also has a price; people need resources to sustain themselves. Bigger populations need more food and raw materials which naturally increase the costs to the state. A balance has to be maintained between the size of the population and your ability to support them with your resource reserves. New recruits and workers are of no use if they can’t be fed. One option you have for regulating the increase or decrease in population size, are the birth rate support grants. Levels can be adjusted for the whole state or for individual cities.
The type of government also affects the efficiency with which resources are mined, distributed and used. Some forms of government administration are particularly good at managing their resources; one example is small city-states whose administrations are based on collaboration.
Corruption is another critical aspect of your economy. The effective management of larger states will be compromised as power is delegated to lower levels; the further from the seat of power, the more likely that local civil servants will use their positions to enrich themselves. The different government types in the game can have an enhancing or suppressing effect on corruption. City-states are prone to corruption because they are self centered whereas empires often have a firm and stable hierarchy to keep corruption minimized.
Managing the economy of the whole state is not an easy task. We have reduced micromanagement, but the important decisions still have to be made by you and these will keep your hands full.
Prosperity can be achieved, but the path to it, is not an easy one.
-
Trading cards
Wed, 12 August 2020
Steam Trading Cards for Imperiums: Greek Wars can be collected now.
Imperiums: Greek Wars has been live for almost two weeks now and the game has already found a way into the hearts of many of you. Thank you for the many fruitful and inspiring discussions.
We are happy to announce that sales have hit the necessary level for Steam to unlock the long promised Trading Cards.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/2c850298563f30b90fa229fcb7916f3d6a047214.png)
There are 9 cards of the greatest of ancient leaders in small and large sizes as well as handcrafted badges and emoticons, all waiting to become part of your collection. Formidable Sparta, scheming Achaemenid Empire and of course the rising star of Philip of Macedon - these are a few of the obvious choices.
The only question remains – who will collect them first...
-
Version 1.0.7. (Patch)
Thu, 13 August 2020
Hello!
We are slowly moving from major bugs towards less important bugs and fixes that either have a lower impact on the gameplay or affect a small group of players only. We finally got to a point where we can again focus more on improvements.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/242823012122c7e693497f2f0ac90ec5923ed89c.png)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• Trading cards are available now.
• Performance improvements.
• An issue in Custom worlds when player selected a particular faction but a different one was selected by the game, was fixed.
• Tweaks applied for the raids of Celtic - they are less frequent and a bit more dangerous now.
• The Advanced Player Options in Game Options stay open when the "Show advanced options" checkbox is checked.
• Changes in French, German and Czech localization texts.
• Proper handling of corrupted save files.
• Proper handling of missing Windows sound player component.
• Rare CTDs were fixed.
-
Multiplayer duel: Lord Lambert vs Pavel the Dev on August 20
Thu, 20 August 2020
Mutliplayer stream: Lord Lambert and Pavel the Dev, against the mighty Spartans
Lord Lambert, the gaming warrior seasoned by many great battles from our history and Pavel, the game’s main designer and developer, heard the call of the smaller peoples oppressed by the arrogant Spartan spears and have decided to take action.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/63a9beaf76e662b9292c3a3353368b6f170ebf33.png)
The Peloponnese has always been a powder keg and once again armor is being polished and swords sharpened, in the anticipation of grand battles.
Could two ambitious leaders, with their small armies, win against the mighty Spartans? If they do, can they share in their victory, or will the lure of glory, or their greed, turn them against each other?
Tune in for this epic encounter on the Peloponnese on Thursday, August 20 at 9PM CEST – 7PM UTC - 12PM PDT either here on Imperiums Steam page or Lord Lambert’s Youtube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Lambert2191
Nothing is pre-agreed, nothing is set. Let’s see if these two great leaders are worthy enough to become legends in their own right.
-
All Events > Imperiums: Greek Wars Events >
Version 1.0.8. (Patch)
Hello!
New update is coming.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/f0e7590a554f1720a09e26cd3b4619f79e0b6b27.png)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• The size of the city labels is now configurable in Game settings..
• The issue causing crash in library was fixed.
• The issue with stuck message loop (at the end of the turn) was fixed.
• The Technological Dominance victory condition was tuned down (it should be a bit easier to achieve it now).
• An option to disable Advisor pop up window directly in the window was added.
• Changes in Russian, Spanish French and Czech localization texts.
• One other rare CTD was fixed.
Have a nice rest of the week and stay tuned, small surprise announcement is coming soon!
-
Imperiums: Troy – free DLC is coming
Mon, 24 August 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/de24ed1b4194f78e3e47da39a87dfec77a6f8d2a.png)
First DLC will take you to the walls of Troy.
Imperiums: Greek Wars was released just a few weeks ago and we have already received many questions about our roadmap and future plans for the game. It really warms our hearts that you enjoy the game so much, that you want more!
So far, we have been evading the question, as we needed time to get ourselves back on track after the post-launch period, which required all of our attention. However with the forums booming with ideas and suggestions, the time has come to lift the veil a little on our future plans.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/256f7b517f8f1b82daff9aadeaaff02a116107d9.png)
Several months ago, we had the idea of creating a smaller scenario, that would be more focused on tactical rather than strategic warfare. An added bonus would be an additional map suitable for multiplayer. Being absorbed in Greek ancient history, you could hardly think of a better setting than the mythical siege of Troy, could you?
It was too tempting for us to resist. We created a small map, with four Greek factions standing together against the formidable Trojan army, which is in position to guard the coast and behind it, the unbreakable walls of Troy itself. The Mykenaen king, Agamemnon leads the united Greek forces, these include Odysseos, the shrewd king of Ithaca, the immortal Myrmidons led by Achilles and even Ajax of Salamis.
The conflicting goals are clear, the Greeks want to burn Troy to the ground, while the Trojans want to keep the attackers from their coast. However, warfare is an expensive endeavour. The Greek forces are already encamped on the islands off the Trojan coast and even their most optimistic planners know they cannot stay here for more than a couple of years. Will they be able to take Troy, before more pressing affairs force them to return home? Will Odysseos find the fair Helen and end the war before the great city is burnt to ashes? Who will become the Aristos Achaion, the best of the Greek warriors, Achilles or Ajax?
Will the Trojans manage to defend their beautiful city and crush the arrogant Greeks?
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d40b9f28e2b3cb5a49d8fd0e9785e3bba09f9c25.png)
The war has just begun and it is you who will decide the fate of the Trojans.
As a bonus, the DLC will be free, as a thank you to all our players, supporters and fans for the great feedback, reviews and inspiration you have given us.
Stay tuned, more details are coming soon!
-
Version 1.0.9. (Patch)
Thu, 10 September 2020
Hello everyone.
It might seem quiet but we have been working hard the last several weeks on number of fixes and improvements. We will share more in the next article but firstly, we would like to introduce a new update which has just been uploaded on Steam.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/9572327fcded639e55ef420a84b585cd2c59bf1a.png)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• Support for new fonts and languages.
• Unit selection out of a stack was improved. Simple click on a banner will immediately show the unit selector if there are more units on a tile.
• Rules related to mutiny of Generals was tweaked.
• Special highlight for missing resources when player wants to build an improvement was added.
• When a player does not have enough resources to build/recruit any units in a city, he can still see all the unit types to recruit. This allows a player to know how much resources is missing.
• When a Strategic Overview window is displayed without a unit selected, city is selected by default.
• AI - improved "back to safety" behavior (when AI unit is in danger of being destroyed).
• AI - improved behavior of influencing a square.
• AI - improved calculation of future supplies.
• AI - improved disembarking behavior.
• Default saturation value was changed. The map is now more colourful.
• For modders we added possibility to immediately update banner in a GameAction.
• Casualties graph was tweaked so it correctly shows the casualties for resurrected nations.
• Several new illustrations were added to the game.
• Some changes and corrections were made in Spanish, Russian and Czech localizations.
• Issue with treasure locations was fixed.
• Issue with special Czech characters on terrain labels was fixed.
We hope you will appreciate these changes. More is about to come.
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
What's in the Kube? Post-release episode
Sat, 12 September 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_f4c17870b277b1fc6628afa312bd1f9879e4e0b8.1920x1080.jpg?t=1599847649)
Read about the post-release period and our plans for Imperiums: Troy in our new regular update series.
Hello everyone!
We hope that you stay healthy in these weird times and keep enjoying life.
We would like to keep you updated about our work and plans, so we decided to start a regular inside blog called "What's in the Kube?". As this is the first episode, we would be happy for any kind of feedback, what would you like to hear about, what are you interested in?
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4455e514da0cdcaeaad25805f61b63467e19c120.png)
It has been a very interesting six weeks for us since we released Imperiums: Greek Wars. We are genuinely happy about the feedback we are getting from you. It keeps our post-release days busy but it also motivates us to keep working hard on our future plans.
The game has already received nine updates - patches in which we were trying to address the most important and annoying problems. We initially focused purely on technical issues related to either crashes (although there were not many such incidents) and some PC-configuration issues out of our control (system permissions, antivirus issues, etc).
The low number of issues of this nature was a pleasant surprise for us and it allowed us to move to smaller adjustments and improvements quite early after release.
We generally don't like to delay updates. We would rather release more patches in a shorter period of time than one big update trying to address too many things at once. If we can fix something now, we will do it asap and that's something we want to stick to in the future. That's the reason why we released nine updates in six weeks.
Apart from these fixes and smaller improvements, you might have also noticed the announcement of a DLC called "Troy". This DLC is going to be released for free as a big "thank you" for your support and all the nice words and reviews you gave us.
We noticed some surprised and even mocking reactions in this regard. Why are we releasing a DLC focusing on Troy when it is literally just a few weeks since the release of Total War Saga Troy.
To be honest, we expected this in part. We know that Total War is a huge beast we cannot compete with. We also know it has been released for free and the scale it tries to cover is larger than what we are going to offer. Still, we want to take our own shot with this really interesting theme for a few reasons.
First of all, we do it for our supporters (not for fame ;), second, we strive for a different approach to this historical period and third, let's challenge the be(a)st :)
So, what is actually being cooked up in our lab? Troy is going to be a pretty small scenario, lasting between 50-80 turns and allowing you to play as one of the five factions - either as one of the Greek kingdoms or Troy itself.
The setup is very different to what we offered you in the Macedonian scenario. Troy is way more tactical than strategic, trying to tell the story in a meaningful way and tweaking several Imperiums mechanics considerably. Plus, it was designed to test the modding possibilities of the game.
But enough of technical chit-chat :) What is "Troy" really about?
Troy DLC will tell you the story of the great semi-mythical battle in a believable and dramatic way. The historical event is at the core here, with the legends being added as the icing on the cake. Hence, prepare to experience the true story behind Troy, where it is not necessarily the heroes who drive the history, but the tactical thinking and shrewdness of the commanders that will lead the armies to victory.
On the other hand, heroes and myths will be part of the game and the actual story of Troy is important for the gameplay, too.
How did we combine these two apparently incompatible things together? We would rather keep this a secret for the release in order not to spoil the fun for you. All we can say is that the gaming experience of Troy will differ quite considerably from the gaming experience of Phillip's scenario.
We hope that we won't keep you waiting for long. We are working hard to deliver the fully balanced and enjoyable scenario as soon as we can.
On the other hand, there is time to work and there is time to rest and the latter has just begun for us. After numerous months without a break, we closed the office for two weeks and we are now enjoying the last days of summer.
It does not mean that we are not here for you - if there are any issues you need help with or any questions you need answers for, feel free to share them with us on our Discord or forum and we will certainly respond in a day or two. Yet, please give us a couple of weeks to relax so we can finish Troy in the way we envision.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.0.10. (Patch)
Mon, 5 October 2020
Hello everyone,
it has been a bit quiet from our side recently - we were off for two weeks but since 25th we are back and working days and nights again:) We have also just uploaded a new version on Steam.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/2c349cd0037d67eaff4e002deada4ff044c90337.png)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• Overall performance increased.
• Tooltips were tuned and should be now way faster (especially when you hover over tiles).
• First Japanese and Chinese translations added.
• So called "experimental language support" was added. When this feature is turned on in config file, you can start the game also in Chinese, Japanese and Italian.
• Small confirmation windows (YES-NO, etc) were re-styled.
• Improved pillage functionality - impact of pillage is based on history and can lead to riots in other cities (if city is considered "culturally close").
• Issue in Multiplayer (UI showing a faction that is actually not currently playing) might be finally fixed:)
• Issue in Treaties offer window causing CTD was fixed.
• Default actions were improved (especially Attack and Heal inside - more appropriate tooltips explaning why you cannot perform them was implemented).
• New information in Map Item Detail window added - date when a city was found or building was built.
• Improved calculation of generating new Heroes/Generals.
• Updated French and Spanish translations.
• Several minor issues fixed.
We also continue working on a free DLC called Troy. We should have more details soon.
Have fun!
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
11 weeks, 11 updates
Sun, 18 October 2020
What can be done in 11 weeks and 11 updates? SO MUCH! Let’s look back at this fantastic journey together!
It has only been two and a half months since Imperiums went live, but to us it feels like much longer. We have published exactly 11 updates in the past 11 weeks, we managed to take two weeks off to recharge our batteries and now we are back developing at full throttle. We are making great strides towards the release of our first DLC, called Troy.
The DLC will be available for free, this is a thank you for the great reception that Imperiums had. It is also a promise of what‘s to come in the future, but we will talk more about that next time.
Today, we want to show you how Imperiums has grown and matured in the past 11 weeks, the major improvements that have been added and how the game now looks.
We know that there are many players among you who have waited to see the first reviews before purchasing the game and maybe others who have waited a while for any teething problems to be solved.
We believe that the game has been greatly improved over the past 11 weeks, we have removed all of the teething problems that we are aware of and the game is now ready for even the most hardcore gamers.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/649e4117532221d8d8ddc302bbdf8dd569c60d38.png)
In the first few weeks after release we had to deal with some technical issues related to the specific PC configurations that players had and there were also a few bugs that needed extra attention. Surprisingly though, there were very few technical bugs so we were able to move onto the player‘s wishes and recommendations pretty quickly, many suggestions on how to improve and smoothen the gameplay have now been completed.
So, here is the summary of the most important changes that have been implemented in the last 11 weeks:
Generic improvements:
• Overall performance was considerably increased.
• Steam Trading Cards were released.
• Support for new fonts and languages was added.
• Time threshold for unlocking new factions in the campaign map was decreased as per player wishes.
Rules/mechanics improvements:
• Calculation for generating new Heroes/Generals was improved.
• Civil war rules and the rules for Generals that desert have been expanded.
• Pillage functionality was enhanced. The impact of the plundering units is based on historical realities and can now lead to riots, especially in cities that are considered "culturally close" by the general populace.
• Tweaks controlling the Celtic raids were implemented. The raids are less frequent but a bit more dangerous now.
Major improvements:
• Dragging the map with the mouse is considerably smoother now.
• New feature in mouse game settings, adjusting mouse delay of edge scrolling was added.
• The size of city labels is now fully configurable in game settings.
• Default saturation value was changed. The map is now more colourful.
• The automatic unit selection setting has been enhanced. A player can now retain the selection of the current unit, even after it has completed its task and used all its action points, if they hold the ALT key.
• Default actions were improved. More appropriate tooltips explaining why particular actions are currently disabled, e.g. for Attack and Heal Inside, were added.
AI (computer player):
• Tweaks related to diplomacy offers sent by AI were implemented.
• "Back to safety" behavior (when AI unit is in danger of being destroyed) was tweaked.
• AI behavior related to influencing foreign tiles was polished.
• Calculation of future supplies improved.
• Disembarking behavior is now more sofisticated.
• Handling of State Decisions by AI is now much smarter.
• Behaviour of neutral players (independent nations) has been improved. They can now build cities within the borders of your country as well as outside your borders.
UI (User interface):
• Unit selection out of a stack was improved. A simple click on a banner will immediately show the unit selector if there are more units on a tile.
• Special highlight for insufficient resources when player wants to build an improvement was added.
• Unit selector opens even when a player cannot currently build any units in the city (e.g. due to lack of resources). He therefore knows what unit types are available in that city and what resources is he lacking.
• When a Strategic Overview window is displayed without any unit selected, a city tab is selected by default.
• Small confirmation windows were re-styled.
• Information about the Citizens/Slaves ratio has been added to the tooltip of the Slaves resource in the Resource Panel.
• Information about the construction of a building/city has been added to the Map Item Details Window.
• The cost of State Decisions is now displayed in the Resource Panel when you hover over the State Decision button.
• An option to disable Advisor pop up window directly in the window was added.
Major bug fixes:
• Several quite rare, yet annoying issues causing crashes were fixed.
• An issue with shovel holes staying on the map forever was solved.
• An issue in Custom worlds when player selected a particular faction but a different one was selected instead, was fixed.
• Graph of casualties was changed to show correctly the casualties for resurrected nations.
• An issue in Multiplayer (UI showing a faction that is actually not currently playing) was fixed.
Other changes:
• Changes in Russian, French, German, and Czech localizaton texts.
• Several new illustrations were added to the game.
• First Japanese, Chinese and Italian translations added (experimental for now).
As you can see, we are serious about bringing the game to the best level possible, so .. grab your copy and give it a try!:)
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
A peek under the hood of Imperiums: Troy DLC
Tue, 27 October 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/de24ed1b4194f78e3e47da39a87dfec77a6f8d2a.png)
First details about Imperiums: Troy DLC revealed
The first DLC for Imperiums, simply called Troy, is now very near to release. At the moment, we are testing and polishing the last details and our great translators are finishing work on the remaining texts.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/256f7b517f8f1b82daff9aadeaaff02a116107d9.png)
When we announced the DLC, some of you were surprised by the choice of theme. We are well aware of another recently released game that also focused on this historical period. It is not our ambition to go eye to eye with an AAA title, we just wanted to make our own version of this captivating story.
The Trojan war is half myth, even historians themselves are not united about when, where or even if it was really fought. We dedicated quite a lot of time to the reading of various historical sources and legends to make our account of those events as precise and as believable as possible.
On the other hand, gods and heroes are as vital a part of the Trojan legend as they were an integral part of life in ancient times and we could hardly ignore their role in this story. Our goal was to find a compromise where the supernatural is present but in an acceptable and believable way, even for those of you who come to Troy to fight a real battle. There will be no cyclops or minotaurs but the gods are by their nature omnipresent.
So, let’s take a more detailed peek under the hood.
The campaign map is relatively small, it covers the southern part of the Hellespont strait with several outlying islands. The story starts with the Greeks already settled on several of these islands opposite the mainland, with their fleet getting ready for an assault. The Greek coalition consists of the Mykeneans lead by ambitious Agamemnon, Ithakans lead by wise Odysseus, Myrmidons headed by the great Achilles and Salaminians lead by another great hero Ajax.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/11e4689f1463ceb47c76cada9cb4faa4e04f100d.png)
The Greeks disembark on the Trojan coast within the first few turns of the game and we took extra care to teach the AI to put Troy under real pressure right from the start. The testing shows that the AI is more than capable of leading the Greeks. Sooner or later Troy loses most of its coastal areas and although Troy has its own small war fleet, it cannot stand against the massive force of Greek ships. However it can still inflict some damage and trouble the invading armies.
Resource wise, none of the factions are fully dependant on income from mines and cities. Troy gets some extra resources via supply lines, but these are vulnerable to Greek attacks. The Greeks get resources from their homeland, but the maintenance of their army becomes more and more expensive over time.
This will necessarily lead to a war of attrition, with both sides fighting for more resources. Troy DLC is not only a tactical game, it has a strategic dimension too.
The course of the war can be affected by side events, such as Thrakian raids in the north, the sacking of the temple of Apollo or the cutting of the Trojan supply lines, via their only port that is capable of building biremes. The effects of these events might seem minor but their long term effect may significantly affect the war.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/34d8bb78726e7bb805432ed2ef994f7bbb5b4041.png)
In contrast to the main campaign map, we removed the options to build most of the buildings, such as temples, blacksmiths, shipyards, etc. to emphasize their strategic importance in Troy. Several of them are placed on the map at the beginning and losing a blacksmith or a stable may have devastating effects on the outcome of the war.
Another major change is the removal of the Research tree and all technologies. You can only work with what you are provided with at the beginning of the scenario. This decision was driven by the fact that we are only covering a period of a year or two and pretty much all of the resources will be used by the war machine.
The Research tree is replaced by a `Book of Fate`. This represents the supernatural in the game and provides interventions from the gods to both Troy and the Greeks. As a player, you cannot affect these events. They are designed in a way that they should not significantly alter the course of the war, rather that they should create an immersive story line with minor advantages or disadvantages for either side while staying true to the legends of Troy. As always in Imperiums, this feature can be disabled if you are not fond of these kind of random events.
There are also two legendary prophets, Helenos and Kalchas. These two Seers, one on each side, allow the fog of war to be lifted. This enables you find out what is happening behind the Trojan walls or conversely where the Greeks are planning their next disembarkation.
If you decide to defend Troy, you can be sure that sooner or later the Greeks will push you back behind the great walls of your city. These walls give you a major advantage and if you use them well it may be possible to keep the Greeks at bay long enough to bleed them dry. You can also use your citizenry to defend the city walls, this will strengthen the defenses but you need to keep in mind that fear can have a devastating effect on the morale of those inside the gates.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/eadc30968965903a5b7a1a15a5ae8ea915d317f6.png)
The Greek factions have their own disagreements. If you manage to improve your relations with one of the factions and sign a separate peace treaty, you can save the city and the kingdom. This option, or the exhaustion of the Greek forces in front of your gates, provide two of the more practical options for winning as Troy.
The truth is though, that unless you are well prepared for a long siege, your people will start to starve. Even if you manage to keep the city walls intact, the men may stop following your orders, rebellions may break morale faster than the constant Greek attacks. To avoid starvation and to reduce pressure on your resources, you can lead elements of your population out of the city to the east.
How this legendary battle ends, is up to you. Although the games are quite short (2-4 hours), they are action packed, and if you step into the Trojan throne, you will most likely find yourself trying to save the city over and over again. Leading the Greek coalition is also a challenging option and we can promise you either way the outcome will be ʺjust one more turn“.
-
Version 1.0.12. (Patch)
Tue, 3 November 2020
Hello everyone,
we hope that you are all doing well.
Last couple of weeks we have been really busy with the upcoming Troy DLC, still we took some time to make some changes to the game core, too. They are rather minor but touch various parts of the game.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/ab2283ab5d82585795c62228dbc54dcf5489ee6a.png)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• It is now possible to translate unit names, including cities (we have already added several language-specific names).
• Illustrations displayed in the Technology tree should be sharper.
• UI issues with map shifting when clicking on the helmet above the banner (indicating number of units on the tile) were fixed.
• UI issue with selecting units from stack fixed (a shield indicating stacked units on the map disappeared after unit selector was displayed).
• The Launcher now displays an offline message when the game is started while the PC is not online.
• Minor restyling of several popup windows.
• Spanish, Czech, German and Russian text updates.
• Additional texts of Japanese added (Japanese is heading to proofread now).
• One rare CTD (crash to desktop) was fixed.
AI changes:
• Naval invasions improved.
• Military campaigns deals are now evaluated better.
• Movement of generals was improved (finding safer positions, using amphibious options).
• Actions of Hades warriors improved.
Have a nice week and we will be in touch soon!
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.0.13.
Sun, 15 November 2020
Hello everyone,
we hope you had a good weekend and to make it even better, we have just uploaded a new version to Steam.
Some of the changes have been implemented thanks to you and your suggestions, some issues were addressed as part of the process of completing and balancing the Troy scenario.
There are some interesting changes in the list, so check them out.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/fcd262f1a02d5a66577b3842379dac5bf07ed88b.png)
New features and improvements added:
• Map highlights for Generals added. When selecting a General, you will now see a highlight of all units as well as cities that would be affected by the Encourage or Provoke Uprising actions.
• Self-healing of ships can be done on land only from now on.
• Patrol Towers and Seers were added to the loop of active units; this applies only when there are any potential targets around the Patrol Tower or when a player has enough resources to execute the Peek action in the Seer.
• A tooltip for defense penalty for influencing tiles/units was added.
• Formatting changes in Objectives and State Decisions pop up windows were added to make the impact/rewards clearer.
• State Decisions in State Decisions Window were ordered per their importance.
• Updates in Czech, French, Spanish, German and Russian texts.
• Major update in Chinese texts, getting ready for proofread.
• Ongoing changes in Japanese texts as part of the proofread.
• Some typos fixed.
AI changes:
• Handling trade by AI was considerably improved (longer-lasting trades).
• AI can take full advantage of a Unit Healing Treaty now (this treaty allows to repair units in ally's cities and facilities).
• Attack preparations improved.
• Actions and behavior of Heroes improved.
Bugs fixed:
• An issue with opponents' actions continuing in the background when a Battle Result Window is open and blocking the view was fixed.
• "Walking Jesus" issue solved (a unit supposed to be inside a ship was running after the vessel above water after the ship has moved).
• Couple of rare "quit" game issues fixed (despite it had no impact on gameplay, it opened an error window when the game exited).
• Two very rare CTDs fixed.
See you soon in Troy!
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
Manual for Imperiums: Troy revealed
Tue, 17 November 2020
The free DLC called Troy will be out in a week, and you can start planning your strategy with its manual.
The time just before releasing a game, be it a new campaign or a sequel, is always very exciting. We get a lot of questions about the upcoming DLC Imperiums: Troy, and it’s great to see that our players are as excited as we are!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/85d608a821c546564e05d1830185e870dce98f5e.png)
We realize that as veterans of many strategy battles, you need to plan your war campaigns in advance to be ready for any eventualities that might happen – like, you know, having to call in sick :) You should be aware of the strengths and weakness of your armies, the open as well as covert intentions of your allies, and of course, you need to gather as much information about your enemy as possible.
Though short, the Troy manual (https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1404250/manuals/TroyManual.pdf?t=1605522766) contains all important pieces of information that you should be aware of before you strike. Troy is a tactical scenario, so knowing the battleground is essential (not to mention the game mechanics changes we’ve made to accommodate this style of scenario).
Let the gods guide your steps and lead your men to victory!
-
The Imperiums: Troy DLC is out and for FREE!
Wed, 2 December 2020
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/de24ed1b4194f78e3e47da39a87dfec77a6f8d2a.png)
Return to the walls of Troy with our new DLC Imperiums: Troy.
The first DLC for Imperiums: Greek Wars we’ve named Troy has been just released! The stage for the legendary battle between Greeks and Trojans is set –the armies are prepared, cities fortified and assorted kings and heroes on both sides determined to crush the enemy.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/c81204cbb351c429c20b9962bdcea0c634c044aa.png)
Step in the sandals of proud and arrogant Agamemnon of Mykenai, wise Odysseus of Ithaka, brave Ajax of Salamis, invincible Achilles of Myrmidons, or honorable Priam and Hektor of Troy, and face the destiny that has been set for you by the goddesses of Fate.
This war will be merciless, but don’t forget that there could be more ways to victory than at the tip of your sword.
This DLC is a gift to our fantastic community and all the players who enjoy Imperiums: Greek Wars. So, saddle your horses and ride into the battle with a battle cry on your lips!
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.1.0. - Imperiums marches forward
Hello everyone,
you may know that the first Imperiums DLC called Troy is out today. This expansion is available for free so don't wait, give it a try!
Considering the small size of the map, we have tried really hard to balance it and make it entertaining.
Apart from the expansion itself, we are releasing an update of the game’s core (main game) with version number 1.1.0.
We consider this to be the next step in the development of Imperiums, pretty much all of the teething problems have been fixed, a lot of mechanics have been improved and tweaked and thanks to the enhanced tactical level of Imperiums: Troy a number of improvements to the AI tactical behavior have also been added.
But don't worry, it does not end with 1.1.0. Au contraire! The fun has just begun, we have very interesting plans for Imperiums.
Version 1.1.0. has a number of interesting changes; in particular the AI has gone through a pretty big iteration. Check out the list below.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/95613e1df5962b850aad197a5704e4bbc4ac20bd.png)
New features and improvements added:
• "Tithe" State Decision improved (farms are added to the most suitable tiles).
• Higher wood production for city-states.
• "Discipline" improvement now works as a counterweight to "Dread" improvement (it prevents the drop of unit defense when an enemy unit with the "Dread" improvement is nearby).
• "Slaves Manumission" State Decision is now cheaper (it can be used more frequently with lower impact).
• Hades' Warriors can be transported by vessels.
• Localized city names added for several languages.
• Updated Spanish, French, Russian, German and Czech translations.
• Japanese is now available by default in game (not yet officially supported but it will be very soon).
AI changes:
• The behavior of Generals when trying to influence the cities of other players was improved.
• Improved usage of defensive facilities (a unit's ability to decide when it is better to stay inside a defensive facility and defend or whether to launch an attack was greatly improved).
• Slaves handling changed (AI calculates more precisely when it needs Slaves and acts accordingly).
• More predictable diplomacy.
• State Decisions usage improved.
• Prediction of food shortages was improved and affects decisions on a tactical level as well.
• The algorithm for unit healing was improved (the decision whether to let a unit heal on autoheal, use "recover" or "repair" action or to use allies' facilities for "heal inside" action).
• More focus given to destroying enemy Generals.
Custom worlds:
• Capital cities are bigger from the beginning.
Bugs fixed:
• An issue in the Technology Tree when technologies that should be hidden were visible, was fixed.
• Battle Result Window - unit names are now localized (connected to localized city names).
• "Exiting" CTD was fixed.
• Treaty proposal window was not deactivated after clicking on Cancel (sometimes it was necessary to confirm your decision twice).
• "Patriot" improvement was not working correctly.
With Troy being released for free, we would be happy if you help us spread the word. Tell your friends, share your opinion on forums and in online discussions, write a Steam review ... every little helps.
Thank you for your support.
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.1.1. (Patch)
Thu, 10 December 2020
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/ff72a9d64df8e31cc2768bfc1a494568d320efc6.png)
Hello everyone,
we have just released a small patch v1.1.1., fixing few minor issues we found last week and improving the AI.
Thanks to these changes is the AI in Troy scenario getting really dangerous so give it a try:)
New feature(s) and fix(es) added:
• Probability of a starving unit deserting in the first turn was reduced.
• The Temple of Appolo will be entirely destroyed when plundered (Troy scenario).
• Thrakians have faster ships now (Troy scenario).
AI changes:
• Faster and more focused initial coastal attack.
• More focused advance when attacking (per available supply lines).
Bugs fixed:
• Helmet above a unit banner indicating a number of units on the tile was incorrectly showing the number of enemy units in the ships.
• Another "Walking Jesus" issue fixed.
• A rare CTD fixed.
• UI issue when a Diplomacy Window was closed with ESC/Spacebar was fixed.
Have a nice weekend!
Yours
Kube Games team.
-
What's in The Kube? - Future Plans
Mon, 14 December 2020
Take the wheel and co-decide where development will lead.
Hello everyone!
Firstly, we would like to share some great news with you - our game made it into the TOP 100 indie games released this year. We want to thank you and ask for your support to try to get into the TOP 10... we don't expect to win but being in the TOP 10 would be really amazing....
You can vote here - https://www.indiedb.com/games/imperiums-greek-wars
Now, back to the point - the release of our Imperiums: Troy DLC is yet another big milestone for us, and we hope that you already tried your hand on it and had fun.
However, the development of Imperiums does not stop here. We have many great ideas for the future, so let’s lift the veil a little.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/a742689d45ad908c0828e3950480331f21d26838.png)
We might take a short break before the year is out, a bit of quiet time with families and friends, but starting with the new year we want to rev up our engines again and jump right into the development of the next DLC.
It will be a detailed map comparable in size with the main campaign map of Imperiums: Greek Wars. Although we already have the idea worked out, we want to hold off on its announcement a while yet, probably till the end of January, just to give ourselves some breathing time. But we are confident that you won’t be disappointed and that the wait will be worth it.
However, creating a new campaign map is only part of our plan. We want to keep improving and expanding the game core itself, and so you can look forward to a number of smaller as well as major improvements and changes. And this is were you can take the wheel yourself and steer development where you feel it will benefit the game the most, or what you think will be the most fun.
With every update cycle, which should be not more than a month, we plan to make a poll on which feature or mechanic should be improved/upgraded/added for the next update. There is a new channel on our Discord called "Next feature poll" dedicated just to this.
The poll will be open for about a week after which we’ll check the results and the option with highest vote count will be selected for the next update. The new poll will always be announced both on Steam in an article and of course via the notification system on Discord.
You can also add your two cents to the discussion and list any suggestions for improvements that aren’t in the list. Feel free to share your ideas with us on the Steam forum in the Suggestions section, as well. We’ll give every opinion and idea due consideration.
So, which of these will be your choice nr. 1 in the first poll?
Implementation of full 2D View - A new game setting in the Graphics tab allows you to switch to the fully featured 2D mod. Apart from pleasing all of the players who prefer this option over 3D or Topview, it should also make a considerable impact on the performance of low-end PCs.
Shipyards affecting Food production - The function of a shipyard will be extended as it becomes a port for fishermen as well, and so it will increase Food production around the harbor.
Plague contagion – The spread of the disease will be a multiturn event, affecting cities in waves and not all at once. This will give players a chance to make efforts to slow the spread by building appropriate improvements in their cities. The epidemic could also start among soldiers, not only in cities.
Conversion of Knowledge to Influence - When a player reaches the end of the Technology Tree, part of their Knowledge resource will be automatically converted into Influence, while the rest will be kept as Knowledge for possible trading deals.
We think that all these changes will greatly improve the game and make it more fun, so we are truly curious which you select. However, should your choice not make the cut at first, don’t worry, it might be added to the one of the next polls.
All this however doesn’t mean no other changes and improvements will be forthcoming. We have an extensive feature wishlist and we plan to implement the most desired changes as we progress towards the next DLC.
We wish you all a happy and peaceful holiday season.
P.S. If you would like to give us a Christmas gift, tell your friends about the game, share a word about it on forums, or write about your gaming experience in a review on Steam.
Thank you for your continuing support!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Official localizations – new languages and updates
Fri, 18 December 2020
New languages will be soon added to the officially supported localizations.
Hello everyone!
Our player base is growing by the day, alongside this, there is also the wish to localize the game into more languages. So far, the base game has been released in six languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Russian and Czech.
All of these localizations have been completed by our dedicated community, volunteers with a passion for Imperiums who wanted to give their countrymen an opportunity to enjoy the game in their native language.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/60a0a8a13e8284f7de2f63dfd54b982a58ba368d.png)
They have done and still do a terrific job considering the amounts of texts, additions, changes and updates being made.
Although they do their best, community translations carry the risk that things might be delayed, especially in these uncertain times. This happened to be the case with the French texts for the Troy DLC. However, today we are happy to announce that this translation is complete and we can add it to the next update.
We continuously work on other languages as well. The Japanese „one-man“ team and a couple of great proofreaders have already finished both the localization and proofreading and we are very close to adding the language into the official localizations. Similarly, the translation into Chinese is progressing and is slowly moving forward towards the proofreading phase. This is great news for our Asian fans.
The localizations into Italian and Polish are still ongoing but the translator teams would definitely welcome more contributors. They have already invested a lot of time and energy and have managed to complete most of the texts, however their current jobs and personal situations slow down the process. If you would like to help them, feel free to contact us on Discord. We are grateful for any kind of help and support, with the translations or the proofreading.
We hope to add more languages in the future so that we all can enjoy the full gaming sensation in the language of your choice.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.1.2. Fully playable 2D view
Mon, 11 January 2021
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1183470/ss_f4c17870b277b1fc6628afa312bd1f9879e4e0b8.1920x1080.jpg?t=1610296813)
Hello everyone!
We hope you all had a nice and peaceful Christmas and enjoyed the New Year's Eve celebrations.
2021 is here and we wish that it brings you more fun and less worries than 2020. We also took some rest and recharged our batteries, but we’ve been back a couple of days now and we are going full speed again.
As promised, we will be releasing an update every month (roughly) depending on our workload related to the new DLC. These updates will be focused on bug fixing and on improving the game in those aspects that the player community feels most strongly about.
We introduced a regular public poll where you can vote for feature(s) that you would like to see in the next update. The last poll showed clearly that many of you want a clearer, simplified view of the map in 2D. To be honest, Pavel wasn't particularly happy about this, because from the available options this one is the most time consuming from a technical point of view. But we got our teeth into the problem and would not let go until it was done.
So, full 2D view mode will be now available as a standard part of the game. But that's not all! The list of changes is quite long, so check it out.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/89c925b03a4eb86634ef4a39995f750b58ca6dc4.png)
New features and improvements added:
• 2D View implemented - a feature requested by many players who like to play in top-down view. It allows for a clearer overview of the map and should be also a good solution for those with low-end PCs.
• Happiness modifier called Army Size now indicates if the penalty received is for too big or too small an army.
• The calculation of the Birth Rate Support estimate was reviewed and made more precise.
• Birth Rate Support manipulation was improved - a player can open the Birth Rate Support window also by clicking on city size in the Unit Menu.
• Currently selected city is now highlighted in the Birth Rate Support window and the list of cities is automatically scrolled to it.
• Panels listing damaged and currently busy map items can be now collapsed.
• The Oracle State Decision was tweaked - a player now needs only two Sages to build it.
• The algorithm for selecting the best position for the Lion Statue (State Decision) was improved.
• The costs for paying tribute to Hades (an action of the Gates to Underworld) were added to the tooltip.
• Multiplayer performance was increased (the size of messages has been considerably reduced).
• Trade Overview window now keeps the current scrollbar position (when you get back to the window).
• History Replay window got a new button, which allows the player to see the history either with cameos (leaders' illustrations) or banners.
• Banners in the Political Map now get focus (when one banner is partially hidden behind another and the player hovers over it, the hidden banner will be highlighted).
• "Busy" and "Fortified" 2D icons were changed.
• UI performance was improved.
• Descriptions and titles of the Steam workshop items are now displayed with correct localization (if the creator makes these multilingual).
• Chinese localization got a big update.
• Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Czech localizations were updated.
Bugs fixed:
• Issue with locked technologies not being correctly displayed in the Invention Tree window was fixed (they were "hidden").
• Issue with too many resources given to newly created factions was fixed.
• Issue with a tooltip shadowing a currently hovered UI item was fixed.
• Issues with a missing last line of text in long descriptions was fixed.
• Several rare CTDs fixed.
(https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1997a5cba9576f58304410791e7641af3c20e97d.png)
And now it is time for the next poll! Again, we have four different features for you to choose from:
1. Disabling Advisor for particular situations - this would allow you to disable the advisor for particular warnings only, not as a whole (currently the Advisor window pops up in all attention requiring situations or not at all).
2. Cameos in Trade windows - we would add leader cameos to the Trade windows so that you can see your opponents.
3. Infrastructure connections in Strategic Overview – this would enable the connections between mines and blacksmiths as well as temples and cities in the Strategic Overview window to be shown.
4. "Replay the same map" functionality - this would allow you to regenerate the same custom world but with different starting positions and conditions.
Let us know what you think and don't forget to vote in the Poll section on our Discord https://discord.com/invite/KZUtEf2dgR . The poll will be open for a week 🙂
The best news we saved for the end though. We already started working on our new DLC and the announcement should not be too far off now, so stay tuned!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Japanese localization is now official
Thu, January 21, 2021
Imperiums can be now played with Japanese localization.
Big news today for our Asian fans!
We can finally announce that from today Japanese has been added to the officially supported languages. This is all thanks to our small but extremely active Japanese community and in particular @vol who solely translated the whole game. As we know only too well how big this project was and how much sheer dedication was required to finish it, we want to express our admiration and gratitude for his hard work and passion for the game.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d747de95b6a333255bfa4969bf85cb4aded2a157.png)
As surprising as it might be, it seems that only a few 4X and grand strategy games are translated to Japanese. Hopefully, this localization will not only attract players to Imperiums but perhaps it will bring renewed interest in this type of game in general.
So, if you put off playing Imperiums because of the language barrier, your time has come. The ancient battlefields are waiting for you!
And don’t forget, if you find a mistake in the texts or you want to suggest a way to polish them, feel free to share your ideas and opinions on the Steam forum.
And if you like the game and the quality of the translation, please do write a review in Japanese. @vol will surely appreciate the feedback and praise he rightly deserves.
-
Imperiums: Age of Alexander DLC in the making
Wed, 3 February 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/e9f7a6c2d41c6cf215cf98992b98c2fe0185a823.png)
Take a first look with us at the new DLC for Imperiums called Age of Alexander.
Many players keep asking about the next stop for Imperiums. The truth is that we have many great ideas on how to improve and expand the game, and many of those will come to fruition in the next DLC we’ve named Age of Alexander https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520480/Imperiums_Age_of_Alexander/
In the base game Imperiums: Greek Wars you had the chance as Phillip II of Macedon to lift backwater Macedonia to a powerful state with ambitions reaching far beyond the Hellenic world. It is only logical that we let you continue this great journey in the epoch of Phillip’s son, the great Alexander, and try to fulfill their grand plans for world domination.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/bac7b8d605ae22e2678739db723769af4d814378.png)
As promised, Imperiums: Age of Alexander will bring unique new features that will put your military and political genius to an ultimate test.
Military Reserves
Maintaining a standing army is extremely expensive, especially in times of peace. You will be able to demobilize your military units and send the soldiers home to their ordinary lives. This move to put your workforce, well, back to work, will boost the economy by saving substantial amounts on military spending for state coffers. You can recall the men to service in a short time if required. However, leave them without regular training for too long and they’ll lose their skills to the point you’ll no longer be able to mobilize them into ready-to-fight units.
This feature will allow you to better balance economic development and the needs of a strong standing army. It can be a useful tool that will test your political foresight and military planning skills.
Economic Specialization
Basic resource management no longer suffices. The growing demands of the state will now require specialized facilities, built in blacksmith and cities, to operate the various resource mines and quarries in their vicinity. They represent skilled labor and special equipment needed for mining, processing, and efficiently moving resources. Such facilities are costly and every new specialization even more so, thus it will be up to you whether you decide to create one multi-specialized economic nexus operating all the mines in its vicinity, or you’d rather invest in several smaller facilities with a single specialization each.
Such economic specialization allows you to maximize production of those resources you need the most for realization of your plans. Besides which, it can easily build up a surplus of a certain resource(s) useful to improve ties to other states through trading with them.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/8425e72e7ae6f253dbbdfbfea2358cd85c45c14e.png)
Regional Centers
A growing empire requires decentralization of power to effectively manage affairs in remote corners of the state. Building such provincial capitals will help you reduce corruption to acceptable levels; however, power feeds ambition, and with the growing importance of the new centers you might be faced with decreasing loyalty to your throne.
The choice is not an easy one. You either strive for economic stability and efficient government while accepting the risk of strong opponents growing in your shadow, or you keep all reins of power in your hands and ignore rising levels of corruption and unhappiness that can cause nation-wide revolts.
Emissaries
Having emissaries at foreign courts not only helps you keep a finger on the latest political developments but allows you to subtly direct opinions and attitudes of foreign leaders in ways that suit your own plans and interests. Your envoys can spread rumors as well as words of praise, and occasionally collect vital military information. However, even here you must carefully watch your representatives, as they can easily forget where their loyalty lies as they grow comfortable in foreign ways over time.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/70fb0ff756e5aab4e0b7056676d3b35b516ab59b.png)
Map
The story of Alexander will unfold on a big map spanning from mighty Carthage to great Persepolis, from the cold Alps to the fertile delta of the Nile. We’ll feature 18 playable factions from nomadic warrior tribes of the steppe to powerful ancient empires, each requiring a different strategy.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/b7dddb831a933e1fccf6683c60d512ba99bd981e.png)
This is just a first taste of the changes and improvements that we plan for the DLC. We hope that it piqued your curiosity :) and that you are now as excited about it as we are. We promise to bring more news soon with a few sneak peeks to whet your appetite.
Wishlist now and get a discount at launch! (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520480/Imperiums_Age_of_Alexander/)
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.1.3. Strategic overview extension
Wed, 10 February 2021
Hello everyone!
It's peak winter season now, with fresh snow and freezing temperatures outside. The lockdown keeps us inside most of the time, but we try to get the most out of it, dedicating all of our time to Imperiums.
We are working simultaneously on the improvements to Imperiums: Greek wars and the Age of Alexander DLC.
Speaking of Alexander, don't forget to add the DLC to your wishlist https://store.steampowered.com/app/1520480 so that you don't miss the launch discount!
It has been a month since the 1.1.2. update and it is time for v1.1.3. We do our best to stick to the monthly schedule as promised, hopefully we can still manage this with the DLC release coming closer.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/f6ec2693bd25b9f77e792a467542c41001ca0b0f.png)
The February update v1.1.3. brings the enhanced Strategic Overview (voted in the last poll) and otherwise mostly UI improvements. The list of changes is pretty long so check it out:
New features and improvements added:
• Infrastructure connections in Strategic Overview - the existing as well as the possible connections between map items are visible. This applies to blacksmiths (showing connected mines), cities (showing connected temples and mines), resource mines (showing connected blacksmiths and cities), temples (showing connected cities), sages (showing cities where a philosophy school improvement could be built), Lion of Victory statue (showing cities whose loyalty is affected by the statue) and heroes (capital cities he could still visit).
• Banner and name of the defender in Opponent Actions Panel - the banner and name of the defending faction will be also displayed as text in the Opponent Actions Panel during AI turn (or your friend's turn in multiplayer game).
• Position highlight in reports and dialog windows - when a player clicks on a report in the Report Panel (top left corner) or a dialog window about a particular event, the map view is shifted to the event location and now the particular position on the map will also be highlighted for easier orientation.
• Selection of units in stack in 2D View (and Top View) was improved to make the opening of the unit selector more user friendly.
• 3D model selection improved - the selection of units in 3D was a bit cumbersome at certain positions and situations. It should be considerably smoother now.
• Trade Overview Window can be opened with a click on the trade reports in the Report Panel (e.g., when your business partner doesn't have enough resources to hold his end of a particular trade deal).
• Map Item Type Window can be opened with an alternative mouse click on the Map Item Type selector (e.g., when you want to select a specialization or select a building to build).
• Birth Rate Support Window - names were incorrectly wrapped to another line, this is fixed now.
• Dormant factions are now part of the player selection in customized worlds (e.g. you can now play as Ionia or Celtic tribes).
• Improved automatic GPU identification.
• Japanese "end turn" graphics added (top right corner).
• Japanese language updated.
• Additional changes in Polish language.
• Changes were made allowing to run the game under Proton. Not yet fully supported.
With this update there's also the new poll! Here is a new set of features to choose from and as always, we are looking forward to hear your feedback:
1. Diplomacy improvements - better explanation indicating why AI rejected a particular offer/deal. If such rejection falls under the "too soon" category, the action will be disabled so that a player doesn't waste his time and wait a turn to receive a negative answer.
2. Enable the player to preview a generated map in a customized world and select his starting position before the game starts.
3. Allowing hotseat in a customized world.
4. Online multiplayer enhancement - when a player is waiting for another player to finish his turn, there is not much to do other than watching his actions and the map itself. We would improve this and let the player access the whole UI and all windows so he can plan his next turn in advance, however this will not change the nature of the turn-based approach as he will not be able to perform any actions until his turn starts.
What do you think? Let your voice be heard in the Poll section on our Discord https://discord.com/invite/KZUtEf2dgR . The poll will be open for a week 🙂
We plan to show the first sneak peeks of the Age of Alexander DLC, its map and features soon, so stay tuned!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
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.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/7c7895699d9158386e9f027483045fef6f1f311f.png)
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.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/001cc95b21acdabc99cfdd2db12ad8a63d6f2172.png)
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?
-
SPECIAL PROMOTION! Offer ends 28 March
-34% £24.99 £16.49
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1183470/Imperiums_Greek_Wars/
-
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
https://youtu.be/kIRtrt_Nk0w
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.
-
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.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/2bb8314bf252872cc99e66332f8da9fb245dedfa.png)
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.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/001cc95b21acdabc99cfdd2db12ad8a63d6f2172.png)
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?:)
-
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.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/f6246178358037f12107e9d93cb7338e8c83e6fc.png)
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.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/001cc95b21acdabc99cfdd2db12ad8a63d6f2172.png)
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.
-
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".
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/7d1367d093c5177d91a736980dda906377c257b5.png)
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.
-
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.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/b3b71b6804dea400090621ff6eba2817b72ff5d2.png)
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.
-
Version 1.1.8. Preparation for Alexander
Fri, October 1, 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1a3a6d95d4f00ed816c1a310bdafa0ffff788d35.png)
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.
-
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.
https://youtu.be/fz67CQu7uC8
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.
-
Imperiums: Age of Alexander DLC released
Fri, 8 October 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/783210/ss_9242a22ab3fbb78f9bad51df8ad2b1227671874e.1920x1080.jpg)
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.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/32720708/432ec379646fc1874fd2e415b792f6ff1c0c6212.png)
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!
-
Age of Alexander Dev Stream
Sun 10 Oct 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1f8c40427931df157881ccdd8237ffbfd466526f.png)
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 https://www.twitch.tv/kube_games . 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
-
Age of Alexander Dev Stream II
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1f8c40427931df157881ccdd8237ffbfd466526f.png)
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 ( https://www.twitch.tv/kube_games ) and learn from the master 🙂
See you there!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
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.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/72b8a83ce22e403a1476066ba89498d3978098c2.png)
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.
-
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.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1f8c40427931df157881ccdd8237ffbfd466526f.png)
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 https://www.twitch.tv/kube_games and learn from the master 🙂 See you there!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
Upcoming Event Starts Wed, 27 October 2021
-
Age of Alexander Dev Stream IV
Wed, 3 November 2021
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1f8c40427931df157881ccdd8237ffbfd466526f.png)
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.
-
Age of Alexander Dev Stream V
Tue, 23 November 2021
Fifth Dev stream of Age of Alexander - Hellas. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev.
Hello everyone.
After a short break, we will continue our journey to try and make Hellas a superpower.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/1f8c40427931df157881ccdd8237ffbfd466526f.png)
In the last stream, we were quite successful in stabilizing our position, making Macedon believe that we can lead the Macedonian-Hellenic confederation and in providing economic prosperity and security.
We were successful in retaking the Macedonian cities on the European side of the Bosporus Strait from the Perisans.
A setback occurred when we lost Phylos, this was the border city that provided our main stronghold against the Illyrians, however with our counterattack and conquest of their city of Arnisa along with a gold mine, we were able to finally conclude peace between us.
On our northern border we also made peace with the Odrysians. This will allow us to focus our energy and resources into rebuilding our holdings in the north.
In Italy, we moved against the Samnites who were also fighting the Roman Republic. We conquered their former capital and enslaved part of the citizenry, this was a considerable help to our economy. This brought us into direct contact with the Roman Republic as we now share a border. Despite their warm attitude towards us in official meetings, they have been trying to initiate revolts in our newly conquered cities. Hopefully, they will realize soon that peace is the best way forward for both our nations.
One thing which really hurt was the destruction of our fleet by the Persians. In the past this fleet had literally saved our holdings in Italy. We have started building a new fleet, but songs will surely be sung about Aones's fleet for as long as we survive.
Politically we are preparing to establish a republic to increase our gold income. Overall, our economy is prosperous and we seem to be on the right track to claim hegemony over the known world.
In the next episode, we will try to secure our position in the Aegean Sea, now controlled by the Persians and their satrapies. If all goes well, we might also try to disembark in Anatolia and show Persia that we are not afraid of direct conflict. Join us and Hellas for this critical moment in our history!
As always, Pavel will be happy to answer your questions during the stream so please join in Tuesday 23rd
our Twitch channel https://www.twitch.tv/kube_games
See you there!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.2.3. Winter enhancements
Tue, January 11, 2022
Hello everyone.
We hope that you enjoyed Christmas time in peace and stepped in the new year in good health, with luck on your heels. We also gave ourselves a few days of rest before returning to work on all the exciting stuff we plan for 2022.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4367eae7f41dde175e0f5a6231d9347370817a66.png)
We start with a regular update today, followed by an exciting piece of news at the end of the week and a big announcement next week, so stay tuned!
The new update version v1.2.3.
contains a number of AI enhancements, improvements in the customized worlds and fixed issues, so let's go through the list:
Improvements built in cities from their own initiative (not ordered by the player) show turns left to completion in the city label on the map (similar like when a player initiates it).
Better explanation of the reasons why confederation, federation or absorption proposal was rejected by the AI.
Unit names can be now fully localized to any language. This localization works also for multiplayer when players use different languages in one game.
Trade issue when the list of offered resources was empty, was fixed.
Customized world issue when lack of wood at the beginning made the game unplayable, was fixed.
An issue in federations when slave numbers were negatively affected by signing a federation or absorption, was fixed.
An issue when the information about a temporary improvement (or disabled one) was lost when the unit was being upgraded, was fixed.
Trading exploit (an AI issue) was fixed.
Game options issue when a new General unit was created as part of rewards upon completing an objective despite the "Generals" feature being disabled for the game, was fixed.
An issue in PBEM (asynchronous multiplayer) when it was impossible to rejoin the game lobby after leaving the game, was fixed.
An incorrect tooltip of the yields around a capital city was fixed.
An issue in cycling through active units when a General with 1 action point left was automatically deselected, was fixed.
Language updates in all localizations.
One rare CTD was fixed.
Hopefully, these improvements will make the game even more fun and enjoyable. With this update done, we can concentrate fully on the big news that we will share next week. Have fun until then!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
New DLC Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
Tue, 18 January 2022
A new DLC Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage in the making.
Hello everyone.
Let’s make your day brighter with some great news :)
The Age of Alexander DLC had a great reception, this was just the boost we needed and now we would like to announce a new DLC in the making.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/f15958d516850059a34d32c508bca65dcb7bc9f2.png)
As with the previous DLC, we want to follow the historical chronology. This time we jump several decades further on to the year 301 BCE.
This is one of the most interesting periods of our history. Carthage rules most of the Mediterranean, the generals of Alexander the Great and his heirs fight with one another over his legacy, the Italian peninsula is on fire as the Etruscans and Samnites try to hold back the expansive Romans and at the fringes of civilization migrating nomadic tribes bring further chaos to already troubled times.
The map setup will be grand, 25 playable factions on 5000 tiles
, ranging from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the peaks of Caucasus in the east and from the Teutoburg Forest in north to the Nile Delta in the south.
https://youtu.be/DgJnizXaKxY
As well as the new campaign map we will introduce a number of new mechanics. Starting with migrating tribes, historical events, multi-turn events and mandatory objectives.
Check out the Steam page https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839160/Imperiums_Rome_vs_Carthage/
for more details and don't forget to wishlist the game! Again we will run a short release discount, be sure not to miss it by wishlisting the DLC.
To whet your appetite further we will elaborate on the map setup and new mechanics in upcoming spotlights and faction highlights :)
We wanted this DLC to be more than just a new campaign map and we have put a lot of thought into the new mechanics. In our opinion, the game is quite complex as it is, more new rules could make it too complicated and less fun to play. So, the new mechanics will extend existing features of the game to provide a greater immersion and period authenticity without the need to learn new rules. More interesting and fun to play!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/c1c8c2f78422a1f19a9e5b219c6c61a10198f855.png)
Migrating tribes will provide a new challenge to players at the borders of the known world. They are independent, they will defend their own cities and they will intentionally seek out hospitable regions for settlement. Essentially, they want to establish their own kingdoms and become a real political player in the region.
With historical events we are aiming to bring a more historical flavor to the game. Scripted events will be triggered when certain conditions are met and these should mirror to a certain extent, real historical events.
Multi-turn events should make plagues, revolts and other similar incidents much more realistic. Players can react to these events as they see fit and the events themselves will unfold for better or worse as a consequence of your actions.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/6d9828e6bd711805220703efdffa42f37418fd14.png)
Mandatory objectives will force you to choose one objective at a time, one that you promise to complete, this is your word to your people! Objectives will play a much bigger role in the game providing more immersion and requiring more strategic thinking.
One important thing to note is that this DLC is an extension of the recently released Age of Alexander expansion pack, which means that all of the mechanics introduced there (military reserves, economic specialization etc.) will be also included.
We truly aspire to make this the very best campaign of the Imperiums series. The setup itself should be interesting enough but with the new mechanics, the whole game will be brought to a new level.
Please consider wishlisting the DLC and help us spread the word.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Spotlight - Plague outbreaks
Thu, February 3, 2022
Deadly diseases can cripple a state and bring even a great power to its knees.
Today we start Spotlight series about new mechanics in the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC. Wishlist the game and claim the release discount!
In this article, we will talk about plague outbreaks and how to deal with them.
Plague outbreaks were devastating for a state and its people, crippling the economy for many years or even decades. Whole cities were isolated and movement to and from them was forbidden, fear spread as soon as the deadly boils appeared.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d3a5e4fe631dac1f17e29731574717de9c9b820b.png)
Fighting the disease was a matter of taking preventive measures, many of which did not work. New cases appeared here and there, death followed quickly. What else could it be other than the wrath of the gods?
Plague, even if it occurs rarely, can turn the world upside down, break alliances, set former friends against each other and bring a swift end to all ambitions to rule the world.
How the new mechanic works and what can you expect will be explained by Pavel.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/001cc95b21acdabc99cfdd2db12ad8a63d6f2172.png)
The outbreak of plague can hardly be predicted. Its origins and causes are unknown, the death rate
and the spread rate varied greatly throughout history.
Once the first case of plague occurs, both these attributes provide clues to how the epidemic will develop.
The only possible way to prevent and mitigate the spread of the disease is by the construction of Sewers
in cities, this greatly reduces the risk of infection although it is only partially effective.
The disease spreads in several ways:
City to city
is a coincidental infection from people travelling between cities. The likelihood of infection is directly linked to the „accessibility“ of the city. The easier the movement of people (based on terrain type, roads, etc.), the higher the likelihood of infection. It is important to note that the disease knows no borders and can spread even between states.
City to unit and unit to city
- a unit can be infected if it passes through a city where cases of plague have been reported, equally, an infected unit can bring the disease to another city. This applies to military as well as non-military units, excepting Heroes, Generals or Emissaries.
Along trade routes
- if a city is a trading post and there is plague in another city along the trade route, the disease can spread between these cities. Merchants use trading posts to refresh and replenish their stock and they can spread the disease to cities far from its place of origin.
Cities along trade routes are automatically counted as trading posts, unless there is war between the states that use the trade route. Declaring war with a state where plague cases are reported will interrupt the trade route, stopping the infection from being transferred in this way.
Cities and units that survive or are healed become immune for some time against reinfection
; the likelihood of becoming sick again will increase slowly over time.
You can fight the disease by:
Building Sewers in cities, the best protection. Keeping units away from infected cities, at least this won’t accelerate the spread of the disease.
Isolation of infected units
- it is important to isolate infected units. If this is followed, plague cannot be transmitted from one unit to another (separate campgrounds and harsh discipline ensure that soldiers from different units do not mingle). However, it is possible to transmit the disease from a unit to a city through which it passes or where it stays
. Infected units should be isolated in a remote location or at least kept away from healthy cities during movement.
"City sanitation
" state decision becomes available when new cases of plague have been reported close to player’s border or there are already infected cities within the country without sewers to protect them. This state decision provides a temporary Sewers improvement to those cities where the likelihood of infection is the highest, it also increases general Happiness. On the other hand, it totally stops production in these cities (production of surrounding tiles remains intact) as well as reduce the local birth rate. A certain amount of resources are required to activate the state decision.
"Plague - martial law
" state decision is enabled when plague has spread in the player’s cities. It effectively lowers the speed in which is the disease transmitted as well as the death rate. On the other hand, General Morale and Happiness decrease in the affected cities. Production in these cities is halved and birth rate stagnates.
Sooner or later every epidemic disappears or it moves to regions where the immunity of people is weaker. Try to prevent the outbreak of such a disease, but if it happens, take the necessary steps to reduce its negative consequences immediately.
This new mechanic is far more than just an upgrade of an existing one. You can no longer look at an outbreak of plague in another country as an opportunity for yourself, as we’ve learned. The disease can travel far from its epicenter and reach distant locations, being transmitted by units and merchants along trade routes. What seems a misfortune of a few cities might easily become a disaster for whole countries.
How you deal with the looming catastrophe can dramatically change the course of the game. Don’t underestimate the destructive power of nature.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Age of Alexander Dev Stream VII
Tue, February 15, 2022
Seventh Dev stream of Age of Alexander - Hellas. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev.
Hello everyone.
Together two weeks ago we faced the first counterattacks of Persia in Asia Minor.
I would like to invite you to join me on the expedition against the Asian hegemon this Tuesday in the seventh developer stream of Age of Alexander campaign as Hellas.
In the last stream, we were able to secure and hold a bridgehead in Anatolia and even expand its area a bit. Nevertheless, so far, the advance has been quite slow and cautious.
https://youtu.be/8fJPmNR10VQ
The Persians made several counterattacks in Anatolia and several of our cities switched their alliance due to our poor vigilance. We sent too many units to the battlefront leaving the newly conquered and quite rebellious cities unguarded. This led Smyrnos
to revolt and hand over the keys to its gates back to the Persians.
It was certainly our fault because we should have anticipated this and kept the city garrisoned. Later, we conquered Smyrnos
again but due to the extremely hostile attitude of its citizens towards us and the high risk of another revolt, we decided to plunder the city.
Unfortunately, we didn't learn from this and the same situation repeated itself with Sardis. The city was damaged and we didn't take care to repair it, we didn’t even leave a garrison so it came as no surprise that Sardis decided to join the Persian overlord again. This action was cruelly punished by us in the same way we punished Smyrnos.
Furthermore, due to the lack of slaves, we decided to enslave the population of Halikarnassos right after we conquered it.
After all these actions, there is no doubt that the attitude of the whole region towards us is very hostile and we cannot rely on its citizens to stay in line.
Apart from that, Persians also made several attempts to disembark on our mainland. Even though we were able to fend them off without much harm done, it really showed us the necessity of keeping good garrison units in the rear.
The situation against the Persians was also tense at sea and we engaged in a number of naval battles with our slowly growing fleet. We used the tactics of "wolf packs" - staying in the background, getting all ships ready to attack and then striking one particular enemy fleet at a time. Once the battle was over, we withdrew from the area as soon as we could and started preparing for the next battle. This way, we were able to sink several Persian ships which eventually allowed us to take control over the Aegean Sea with all its islands and forts. Moreover, at the end of the last episode, we were just about to launch our very first trireme. Hellas is becoming a naval power!
Apart from the Persians, the rest of the world was quite peaceful. All our borders are stable and relationships with our neighbors slowly improve. Carthage even offered us a confederation but due to the fact that we would lose all the agreed treaties with the Romans and Illyrians, we declined. Nevertheless, we might come back to this later again.
One small trouble in our foreign relations did happen with the Odrysians (confederated with the Bosporan kingdom) who tried to influence several of our border areas, they were partially successful. Although none of these regions are particularly important, this could eventually indicate some divergence with the Bosporan kingdom later.
Economy-wise, we slowly repaired the conquered regions in Asia Minor. All these construction works totally depleted our stone reserves. The situation should improve soon with the new "quarry" improvements in all of our blacksmiths. Another technological advancement which should considerably improve our economy is the paved roads. We have started building "highways" but the shortage of stones seriously impedes our efforts.
On the other hand, we have abundance of gold and enough iron to start enlarging our army. We have built a couple of new hoplites and axemen and moved them closer to the battlefront. This should be the core force which will be sent further into the Persian heartland in the following turns.
One big disaster struck in May 328BCE when an outbreak of plague killed almost a third of our citizens! What a hit. The plague wave struck in Greece and made it the least populated part of the republic.
It was also the reason why we sent Andronicus (a sage from a temple on Peloponnese) to travel to Asia Minor to start a philosophical school in one of the cities there, rather than spend him in one of the now small cities in Greece.
The last stream ended with us in a pretty tricky situation in one of our smaller military operations trying to conquer a stone quarry on a Persian island. We were able to take over the island, yet our supply ships were attacked and are now severely damaged. Let's hope our hoplites will find a safe way home. If we lose them (and potentially also one of the fleets), this whole operation can only be called an utter failure.
In the next episode, we will try to not only save our hoplites but also further advance in Anatolia and appease the local citizenry and win their loyalty. Join me on our campaign further into the Persian heartland!
As always, Pavel will be happy to answer your questions during the stream so please join in Tuesday 15th
on our Twitch channel
.
See you there!
Yours,
Kube Games
team.
P.S. Here is the last episode in case you missed it.
https://youtu.be/7YLOXEe6oRk
-
Faction Highlights – Western Mediterranean
Thu, 31 March 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_0a5a3ae1e3d9bf8406b767e80cced65db964752f.jpg)
Carthage knows no rival in the Western Mediterranean. Is the empire indeed invincible?
The first glimpse of the campaign map of the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
DLC cannot start anywhere else but on the coast of the venerable Carthaginian Empire. Take a walk with us through the Western Mediterranean.
https://youtu.be/OmpUJvcsloE
Carthage is traditionally a trading empire with a vast merchant fleet and a war fleet that rules the waters of the Mediterranean. It competes with other powers, especially the Hellenes and Egyptians but its position in western Mediterranean is unshakable. However, managing such a large empire with many holdings far away from the centre is no easy task. To protect them and invest in their development requires foresight and good planning. There are many places where the empire’s wealth and armies could be focused. One such is the island of Sicily, a strategic nexus of the region, where many powers try to assert their influence.
In contrast to the busy days of the empire, life on the Iberian peninsula seems calm and uneventful. The tribes living in the interior have very little contact with the outside world, living in blissful oblivion of the struggles for power taking place around Mare Nostrum. Iberia however hides many mineral deposits, dense forests and arable lands, the native tribes should utilize the riches of the land for their own growth and development before the great powers set their eyes on the peninsula.
Somewhere between the less civilized tribes of Iberia and the highly cultured society of Carthage lies the small kingdom of Massilia. The city is surrounded by empty lands occupied only sparsely by Gauls and other Celtic tribes, this gives them a great opportunity to expand and exploit the lands to the north. Politically however, they will need a strong ally to defend their interest, perhaps the aspiring Roman Republic is the driving force that can take Massilia into the Golden Age.
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1839160/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839160/Imperiums_Rome_vs_Carthage/
It might seem that all the trumps are up the Carthaginian sleeve, but there are many undercurrents fed by ambition and greed in international politics, any of which can change the game in the blink of an eye.
Are you ready to take the decisions that will change the history of the Mediterranean? Wishlist the DLC now
and start planning your strategy, because no victory comes cheap and even less so in Imperiums!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.2.4. Spring time
Mon, 4 April 2022
Hello everyone.
Spring is finally here and we feel the surge of new energy as well. It has been more than ten weeks since we released the last update but in no way does it mean that we have been taking a break. Rather, the opposite :)
We work day and night on the upcoming DLC called Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
and it is shaping up to be a great campaign, perhaps the best one!
This takes most of our time, nevertheless we are still improving the base game, fixing bugs, listening to your suggestions and implementing them.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/4a35b423e0b05ec512ac60ddb245c4c6330aa319.png)
The update v1.2.4. called "Spring time" is therefore full of fixes, improvements and AI tweaks. Do you want to know more details? Here is the changelog:
Damaged bridges are removed from the map after a while (similarly to city foundations) as people use their raw material for their own needs (suggested by N0kn0k)
Improved textures of fields, farms, dirt and paved roads have been added (big thanks to Oscar Velzi and his ideas and implementation).
Single player menu item was renamed to "Single PC" due to confusion related to the hotseat mode type of game.
Contextual help button was added to the window informing about a siege.
All topics in Imperiums library are now alphabetically ordered.
AI - Economic thinking improved.
AI - Trading exploit fixed.
A special warning informing a player that he is trying to open a save with missing prerequisite mod. This was added as it was initially causing crashes.
Terrain heightmap anomaly was fixed (thanks to report from Elhoim)
Unit mouse selection was improved (thanks to MiyabiSFG)
Bug in History replay when a position of the first capital was not saved and displayed correctly, was fixed (thanks to report from MiyabiSFGon Discord)
An issue when no General was added using a State decision in a custom world in Alexander mod, was fixed (thanks to report from Nerexa)
An issue with accepting the leadership of another faction (when your country was defeated), was fixed (thanks to report from 4X-Fan )
An issue when recruiting a new unit in a city when the tile capacity is full, was fixed.
An issue with handing over ownership of a newly conquered tile to a confederated faction, was fixed (thanks to report from MiyabiSFG on Discord).
An issue with cities disappearing after a new confederation is signed, was fixed (thanks to report from Adunir)
All languages were updated, particularly Italian and Polish.
A couple of very rare CTDs were fixed.
As you can see, your feedback matters!
There is always something to improve and we will continue polishing the game as long as we can. Whenever you stumble upon a bug, your game crashes or you have a suggestion, please share it with us on the Steam forum, send us an error report or contact us on Discord. We are ready to help, advise or just chat with you. The other players on Discord will surely welcome you and help with any questions.
And one last note about the upcoming DLC. We have started a Spotlight series to let you peek under the hood and soon the first glimpses of the map will be available. Wishlist the DLC and be ready to claim the time-limited launch discount!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Looking forward to the Carthage DLC :dwarf
-
Spotlight - Mandatory objectives
Mon, 11 April 2022
Follow the call of the people and lead your country to prosperity.
Today, we will continue our Spotlight series and talk about another new mechanic in the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage, Mandatory objectives, we want to provide an extra challenge whilst increasing immersion.
If you haven't done so already, please consider wishlisting the DLC so you won't miss the release discount!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/3b43d60fbcb9198688193a20058fee7e19c32426.png)
Your word is law, your decisions determine the future of your people. Every great leader wants a legacy to carry his name through the ages, for most this is achieved on the battlefield.
The ambitions of your subjects are often much more humble, they want to be fed, to feel safe in their homes and for their businesses to thrive. Full bellies, good neighbors and a little spending money, this seems like a good life to them.
A good leader knows the hopes and wishes of his people, a wise leader works to fulfill them.
Pavel will explain how this enhanced mechanic will work.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/001cc95b21acdabc99cfdd2db12ad8a63d6f2172.png)
Objectives have been an integral part of Imperiums since the first release, they cover short or mid term goals in economic, military, political, cultural or scientific areas. There are some 10 to 15 specific objectives per faction that provide a rich depth and background to their situation.
We try to be as historically accurate as possible by creating objectives that are logical and plausible. One way we use to manage this is to use trigger conditions. This ensures that only objectives that make sense in the current game context are activated in the current list, also some objectives are only unlocked if earlier objectives have been completed.
Many players appreciate the extra challenges these objectives provide, the attention to detail and of course any rewards. New players or players playing a new faction can get some idea of what strategies may be worth pursuing by taking a look at their objectives, indeed the rewards can often provide a bonus early in the game.
Others players simply ignore them, either they don’t know about them or they are too preoccupied with their own in game tasks, often they can be surprised when a pop up informs them that they have completed an objective without realizing it.
The objectives mechanic runs smoothly, it increases immersion and rewards players and we have been pondering for a while how to raise its profile. We considered reminding the player with messages but this would be too forced and obtrusive, we want the player to be interested in them and motivated to complete them. After some consideration we have agreed on a concept we call “Mandatory Objectives”.
The concept behind mandatory objectives is simple, your faction will have to choose an objective from the currently available list and commit to it.
The mandatory objective you select will have to be completed within a set time period, success will bring rewards, failure, negative consequences. Once selected, a mandatory objective cannot be changed. Once a mandatory objective has been completed (or not) there will be a break (a cool down period) before the player is once again prompted to choose another mandatory objective.
You will need to evaluate the available objectives against your strategy, the time limits and your current situation before making your choice. Postponing the decision is possible but it comes with a penalty, time limits to complete the objective are reduced by two game turns for every postponement. The idea behind this is to make the player commit to an objective rather than just wait and see how things develop in the game.
Note for players who don't like any commitments: It will be possible for players to disable the mandatory objectives mechanic if they do not wish to use it.
The changes to the original concept may seem small but the impact on game play will be quite significant. You must take into account the desires of your people when you decide on your course of action, as ignoring them could cost you greatly.
Will you rule with a velvet glove or an iron fist? Will you listen to your people or ignore their clamor as you fulfill your dreams of greatness?
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Faction Highlights – Wild North
Sun, April 17, 2022
Surviving in the north is no task for the weak hearted.
Today, we venture to the realm of migrating tribes. These inhospitable regions have the potential to become lively, booming and prosperous, it only needs someone to assert a firm hold on the vast territories and their riches. Here is a glimpse of what awaits you in Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
DLC far in the north.
https://youtu.be/FpY3vIaAtew
The regions beyond the Alps and north of Danube are wilderness, only sparsely inhabited by nomadic and warrior tribes, making it a very interesting setting in comparison to any of the Mediterranean civilizations.
The vast empty lands offer a great opportunity for expansion. The harsh climate, dense forests, dangerous swamps, impassable mountains and rivers, all create great natural barriers protecting the core of the state. Consolidating such a large territory into a functional state and guarding the entry routes will require defensible strongholds to be built and manned by trained warriors. However, at some point, either other tribes of the north will enter this peaceful realm or the player’s own curiosity will lead him to cross the protective borders of his lands and move south towards the rich and booming Mediterranean cities.
The Gauls of the west are attracted by the warm and fertile southern regions and regularly make attempts to establish permanent settlements along the river Pados. The ongoing conflict among the Latin tribes plays into their hands and choosing the right side to support in this tribal war could make their position in northern Italy much stronger.
Celts occupying the far north keep to themselves, not venturing south but rather focusing on building their own kingdom.
Further east is the home of the Dacians. They must walk carefully between their dangerous neighbors, Lysimachus in the south and the Scythian riders in the north.
Many smaller tribes roam the vast lands, among them the fearless Germanic warriors. Their incursions south bring chaos and disruption.
Can you survive the unforgiving harsh conditions and build a lasting empire to humble the great powers of the Mediterranean?
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839160/Imperiums_Rome_vs_Carthage/
The wild north in the upcoming DLC will challenge even the masters among you! Don't forget to wishlist the expansion
so you won't miss the release discount.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Age of Alexander Dev Stream IX - Corsica
Tues 19 April 2022
Ninth Dev stream of Age of Alexander - Hellas. Don't miss the chance to chat with the dev.
Hello everyone.
I hope you can finally enjoy the first days of spring and the warm sun outside.
I will continue our campaign playing Hellas in the Age of Alexander scenario and I would be happy if you join me on my expedition.
It is already the ninth episode and we start again this Wednesday at 9PM CEST (12PM PDT - 8PM BST) time.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/08c76a15a098ec26a7abe7af031e0e48791f79f6.png)
The last episode was really interesting and quite surprising at the same time.
On the Persian front, we finally resumed our advance after a Persian counterattack that stopped our progress.
We besieged Gordion and even though the siege was broken by Persian cavalry, we were eventually able to conquer the city and hold it.
We also took the cities Pessinus and Amastris on the coast of the Black Sea but the latter conquest was a mistake. The battlefront was severely weakened as a result. Although it was guarded by our best hoplite unit, it was extremely damaged from the previous turns and this proved to be fatal - our beloved Antimachos army was entirely destroyed. This was without any exaggeration the biggest loss from the start of the game.
Despite some partial successes, the whole advance stopped again and turned into a stalemate. The Persians brought several fresh units to the front including Kardakes which exhausted our armies and we had to stop all planned operations.
The Persian economy started growing considerably and the whole campaign might now turn to war of attrition which would not be in our favor. That's one of the reasons for transforming Anatolia into a regular part of the republic by building the economic infrastructure with a new blacksmith and number of city facilities.
The biggest surprise and disappointment was the planned conquest of Sparta or what remains from their holdings. They hold only two islands. One of them being Crete and that was our first target. We disembarked and were able to conquer half of the island. Nevertheless, the stronghold on the island was not only well fortified but three melee units were hiding inside which was totally unexpected. After several unsuccessful attempts to conquer the city, the army morale of the Spartan units started to grow considerably and they made a number of counterattacks. They destroyed two of our hoplite armies, considerably damaged another one and if we didn't have an axemen fortified on a position, we would have had to abandon Crete altogether.
We didn't give up though and started to prepare for a longer conflict. We founded a new town called Itanos on our side of the island and improved it immediately with a stockade. We sent General Kios to Crete to improve the morale of our units. We had to transport a hoplite unit (initially a planned reinforcement for Anatolia) to Crete to be able to hold the town. So far, we have lost two experienced units without achieving any tangible results.
In the rear, all seems to go well.
Particularly big changes are taking place in Italy, where we recently established a federation with the Romans and started building up the economy.
We built new cities around the Alps, a new blacksmith in the Po valley and we improved a number of cities by building new facilities. Our Sage Seleucus founded a philosophy school in Sipontum.
We focus our efforts on the former Roman army; we try to upgrade all the milites units to principes in the hope that the stronger units will be able to secure the northern border and slowly advance further.
We finally met the Illyrians from the Italian side at the city of Tergeste, where we both tried to assert control. Tergeste however is a tough nut to crack. Taking over the city will be one of the goals of the next episode.
Illyria proposed a confederation to us and it seemed a rational decision. We share a very long border in the south and east and now also in the west. They probably know that we are much stronger and should we go to war, we would be pulling the longer straw.
Nevertheless, we rejected the offer for now because it would considerably worsen our relationships with other factions. We hope that they will come back with an offer of federation, and we will be able to accept it this time.
Apart from Italy, we keep improving our economy on the mainland. Blacksmiths are being improved; in Korinth, our capital, Sage Bion built a philosophy school.
On the other hand, war with Persia (and now also with Sparta) and the military reforms in Italy are getting quite expensive. Our gold reserves went down about 90% which means we will not be able to recruit new units anymore.
Our economy desperately needs more slaves. We try to cover this demand by trading but it is too slow. We hope that more slaves could be obtained from the independent cities in the north of Italy and in (hopefully) newly conquered cities in Persia.
Carthago is quite idle but that is in our favor. We have sent a newly hired emissary Brygos to Carthago to keep the good relationships.
Events are taking an interesting course on Corsica. Kanelae, a Persian stronghold on the island, is slowly taking control of the island from Carthage, its city Alia being surrounded. It could be used as a pretext for a military expedition, an ideal task for the new Roman principes!
The goals of the next episode are quite clear. We shall defeat Spartans for good, take over Corsica and the independent city of Tergeste. If there are no unexpected surprises on the Persian front, we will try to push forward but I am a bit skeptical that any significant progress can be made, at least for now.
As always, Pavel will be happy to answer your questions during the stream so please join in Wednesday 20th on our Twitch channel. See you there! twitch.tv/kube_games
Yours,
Kube Games
team.
P.S. Here is the last episode in case you missed it.
https://youtu.be/QuIhkHmxxEE
-
Faction Highlights – Diadochi in Europe
Thu, May 26, 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_e43bfb0502c29f361cb4abae847e208b9fdf6d17.jpg)
Sparta, Hellas and Macedon want to return to their place in the sun and reinstate their former prestige.
The realm of the Imperiums
games has always been centered around Greece, the cradle of ancient Mediterranean civilization. This region will continue to play a prominent role in the upcoming expansion Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
as well.
https://youtu.be/R5JBY0oIqxo
Hellas laid political and cultural foundations which the great Macedonian Empire was then built on. Together, they formed the heartland of the empire of Alexander the Great. Now, the region is once again full of animosities that hinder any hopes for a lasting peace.
Hellenic cities as well as Sparta no longer play a dominant role in the political affairs of the eastern Mediterranean. Their power has diminished but their strategic position, economic infrastructure and military traditions still make them valuable allies who could tip the scales in the raging wars of the Diadochi.
Cassander, the king of Macedon, and Lysimachus, king of Thrace, once fought together under Alexander's banner but there is no cordiality between them anymore. Macedon is a prized trophy, the throne in Pella and the crown of Alexander too big an enticement. Both Cassander and Lysimachus are embroiled in the conflict with and against each other and their former comrades Antigonid, Seleucus and Ptolemy.
Riding high on this all consuming hostility is Pyrrhus of Epirus. Enjoying relatively good relations with Hellas, supporting the claims of Antigonid on the Macedonian throne and himself in a good position to march over the Macedonian border, he could rise to dominance if he plays his cards well.
Getting an upper hand in this conflict will be a gargantuan task, with all of the general animosity and unyielding ambitions.
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1839160/header.jpg)
Can Sparta, Hellas or Macedon revive their glory days or will they exhaust each other in an endless conflict and fall prey to a stronger player? Wishlist the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC and see if you can rule the world from the cradle of civilization.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839160/Imperiums_Rome_vs_Carthage/
Yours,
Kube Games
-
What's in The Kube? Peek into our future plans
Mon, 30 May 2022
Follow the major news and announcements for the Imperiums brand.
Hello everyone.
It's been a while since we published the last "What's in the Kube" article, not because there was nothing important to report, indeed the opposite, we've been extremely busy. A lot has happened with Imperiums as well as in our private lives. Most of the game related news has been covered in the articles about the upcoming DLC and the game updates, "What's in the Kube" focuses on major news and announcements, so here it is.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/3c649dd342c0358022b25522e5ee5c830e4decd5.png)
Firstly, an apology to all those players waiting for the new Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC. The initial release was planned for this Spring and this is still "doable", however, we have decided to push back the launch date a bit. The truth is, this DLC is huge, the map is much bigger and is occupied by more factions (playable and dormant) than in the Age of Alexander expansion pack.
The DLC is already functional, the scenario setup and the assets are ready and almost all of the mechanics are implemented, but the balancing and testing of such a big world as this requires a good portion of time. We don't want to deliver an undercooked game, as always, we strive for a flawless, deeply immersive and fun gaming experience, while maintaining a high degree of historical authenticity and that simply requires more time.
We have decided to push the release to Q3. We hope and believe that this postponement will be compensated for by a great DLC. We can tell you already, that based on the internal testing runs this is shaping up to be the best Imperiums campaign so far!
Now to the good news :)
We have started planning and preparing our next project. Don't worry, we are not going to throw Imperiums overboard, we want to build on and expand the Imperiums brand.
We want to create a new game focused on a different historical era, one that is quite underrated in strategy games and in our opinion offers an interesting setting that deserves more attention. We are still discussing the details within the team and once the pillars of the game are clearly established, we will lay our cards out on the table to hear your opinions.
We can already reveal that the game will be ported to the Unity engine. This will solve several technical glitches with the current engine and allow us to consider releasing the game to more platforms, it should also improve the overall performance. The map grid will turn into hexagons, making the map more pleasant to the eye and satisfying our more tactical focused players. All of the assets, from the 3D models, to the illustrations, sounds and music will be completely new. We also plan to redo the UI taking into account the lessons we have learned from Aggressors and Imperiums.
It is a huge step and a big investment for us, but we are resolved to move our games to a new level. We are blessed to have a great community around us and if we may we would like to ask for your support. Please follow our channel(s), talk to friends about our current games, write a review, buy the game as a gift to your Steam friends. Any kind of support is greatly appreciated and makes our work easier. We are considering running a crowdfunding campaign, however we have to carefully weigh the pros and cons before committing to this option.
We want to assure you that our support for Imperiums: Greek Wars will not stop! We love the game as much as you do and we will continue to support and improve it. As proof, we can now tell you that another expansion pack after Rome vs Carthage is already cooking:) It will be a smaller scenario, more suitable for shorter games and ideal for multiplayer games. It will be set in an extremely interesting period and we are already looking forward to starting full-time work on it. Just a small hint, this corner of the world is not covered in either the Age of Alexander or Rome vs Carthage DLCs.
Depending on sales, we have several ideas for other potential expansion pack, but that's a bit too far ahead yet.
And that's it. We hope that the good news overcomes any disappointment from the delayed release of Rome vs Carthage. Let us know what you think, where do you see the Imperiums game in a year or two?:)
More details about our future plans will follow soon, so stay with us!
Yours,
Kube Games
team.
-
Spotlight - Floods
Thu, June 9, 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_e7bb6f834d8ce4a6a9ecb58790da4e4d0ee315d5.jpg)
Devastation of fields during floods can have far reaching consequences.
After introducing Plague and Social unrest as new multi-turn events, today’s Spotlight will be dedicated to Floods, a new mechanic representing the destructive power of nature in the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/c9b24eb5908e1fd0d3f59f56f4739b38a05b3b57.png)
Water gives life, but people in antiquity were also aware of its dark side. It can turn violent within hours and destroy lives and livelihoods, in the long term it can even threaten whole populations. The failure of crops means hunger and social upheavals.
With an empty stomach your soldiers will loose strength and morale, your cities will dwindle as people start to leave. Luckily, nature often has ways of healing its own wounds over time.
Let’s hear from Pavel to explain the mechanic in detail:
It comes as no surprise, particularly for the regular players, when I say that keeping substantial resources in reserve, is key in any strategy game and it applies even more so to
Imperiums
.
Relying on the regular income received in previous turn(s) when replenishing depleted reserves, may not be a smart decision. The lack of essential resources, especially Food, is felt immediately.
The new Floods mechanic puts the decision to keep sufficient Food in reserve, into a new perspective. Floods and other natural disasters in human history had an immense impact on the available food resources. As a good strategist, you should keep such an eventuality in mind and have contingency plans ready.
Floods cannot be predicted. The conditions under which they occur are clear, their occurrence is sudden and it is impossible to stop the great flood of water once it comes.
Floods occur in one river basin (not on all of them at the same time), the water floods the nearby fields, both the river tiles and the tiles alongside the river channel. Huge areas can be affected, particularly in flat regions, floods in one place can quite often mean floods occurring elsewhere at similar time.
What form of destruction do the floods take?
• Terrains such as plains, grassland, forests and woodlands are converted to swamps. This applies to all affected tiles and can destroy fields and farms along the river.
• Bridges on the flooded rivers can be damaged, so when the floods recede, it is good policy to check the state of bridges on that particular river(s).
• All fields and farms built on flooded tiles are destroyed.
None of this can be prevented, which only makes the damage control even more important!
• Flooded tiles will dry out over time as the water recedes. Naturally, tiles furthest from the river dry out first.
• Sooner or later the swamps created on flooded tiles will return to the original terrain type. The only exception is when the terrain has been transformed by the player himself (e.g. draining swamp action).
• As soon as the tiles are dry again (either drained by the player or through the gradual retreat of the flood water), it is possible to build new fields and farms on plains and grassland as usual.
• Bridges damaged during floods can be repaired immediately. Keep in mind that any movement through swamps even when roads are built, is very slow. Keeping the road network and water crossings in good order is therefore very important.
Sooner or later the flood water disappears, but its consequences might be felt for many years. Check the damages, pay special attention to the ruined fields and farms, determine how your food production has been affected. Start rebuilding and repairing the infrastructure as fast as possible to prevent any secondary disasters, such as famine.
Pray to the gods that they keep a protective hand over your land and its people. If a disaster strikes and the fields full of green sprouts turns to muddy pools, act fast. Trade the surplus of other resources for food, make certain that your people do not starve. Plans always change with circumstances, this is another challenge that will test your worthiness as a leader.
Yours,
Kube Games
team.
-
Spotlight - Historical Events
Wed, 6 July 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_681771b70b902b7f722ef01db811611c42775506.jpg)
Major historical events introduced to the Rome vs Carthage campaign.
It is time for another part of our Spotlight series, today focused on Historical Events. This new mechanic that will be introduced in the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC will enhance the feeling of historical authenticity and will bring interesting, yet realistic twists into the game flow.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/ba09019f9fa7b534af38ede817e01883fb18b731.png)
As soon as you start your rule you will be inundated with reports and news from all corners of your empire, everybody will try to get your attention. As always, they all find their own problems to be the most pressing and acute, thus requiring the immediate attention of the ruler. In such situation, seemingly unimportant events might go unnoticed or pushed low on the list of priorities. You should learn to be sensitive to the signs and small manifestations that warn you of potential major changes on the horizon. What precautions can be taken to prepare for the unexpected?
Reports of barbarian groups living in the forests beyond the river border come every once in a while. Of course, they could be a peaceful people, but ignoring their existence completely might be a grave mistake. Perhaps a small garrison positioned on a lookout over the river is a sufficient precaution, one that might save the day should they decide to cross the river en mass, with sharp axes and battle cries.
Pavel will give you a more detailed insight into how this mechanic works:
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/001cc95b21acdabc99cfdd2db12ad8a63d6f2172.png)
It was our ambition from the beginning to make Imperiums historically authentic and believable. Once you enter the game, your actions and decisions create an alternative history, however, the initial setup is carefully designed to illustrate historical reality as faithfully as possible. To this end, we undertake a thorough AI balancing and tweaking to make the AI behavior logical and realistic, or at least historically plausible during the first dozens of turns.
The new mechanic called Historical Events should further increase immersion and enhance the feeling of a true historical setting. We have selected several key events that shaped this historical period and have slotted them into the new campaign Rome vs Carthage. Therefore you might experience some history-changing events that are not triggered as a consequence of the developments in the game but have been implemented externally.
They do not occur accidentally, nothing ever does in Imperiums games:). We have taken extra care to define the trigger conditions in such a way, that these events fit logically into the game situation. Often, their occurrence is preceded by „signs“ that you can observe directly in the game. A small spoiler now, examples of such events are, the intrusion of the Sarmatians into the Black Sea region leading to the destabilization of the whole area, the migration of the Germanic tribes towards Pannonia and the Danube river and the unrest in Bithynia that set off a number of other events that affected the whole of Asia Minor.
The conditioning of the historical events is flexible, so they can be triggered anytime during the game and their effects can differ greatly depending on the current situation. Moreover, you will be informed about the potential dangers and the likelihood of their occurrence. It will then be up to you to analyze the situation and take whatever precautions you deem necessary.
The selection and implementation of the historical events was tailored to the Rome vs Carthage campaign, however, we are aware that many players prefer custom maps to the historical scenarios. We wanted them to enjoy this new mechanic as well but the implementation is more difficult here. Not only do the settings vary greatly but also the map itself is not „known“ in advance. Here, the historical events will be of different nature than in the historical campaign, more generic, to fit the many different courses in which the game can develop. We believe that the extensive testing has been worth it. You can expect events such as the division of an empire between the sons of a deceased king, internal collapse caused by the decadence of the empire or annexation based on the historical affinity of particular regions.
This mechanic is in many aspects a continuation of our previous efforts to make the game more immersive and the gaming experience as authentic as possible. We hope and believe that the selection and implementation of these events will increase player engagement and intensify the feeling of a true historical setting, as your game tells a believable story that could easily pass into the history books.
To weigh up the importance of all that is happening within the empire as well as outside of it, is one more aspect of the leadership skills that distinguish a good leader from a great one. Expect the unexpected and whenever possible apply measures that could prevent a catastrophe. Bad luck can befall you at any time and often it is a minor precaution taken some time in the past, perhaps long forgotten, that can change the outcome.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums celebrates its second anniversary. Celebrate with us!
Wed, 27 July 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_ce97125452e4dc5c6068d7564eeef059b4484187.jpg)
Recap of the last two years with Imperiums and what lies ahead.
July 30th marks exactly two years from the launch of Imperiums: Greek Wars.
It was a big step for us – we decided to strike out on our own and take care of everything from the beginning to the end ourselves, starting from designing, programming, testing, marketing to release and following support. Two years is quite a long time, so allow us to look back and remember some of the greatest achievements.
Imperiums: Greek Wars
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/header.jpg)
-51% £24.99 £12.24
Imperiumshas received altogether 28 major updates since the release of version 1.0.0. and approximately three times as many patches. We publish a changelog with every update to sum up the most important changes, improvements, and bug fixes. The frequency of updates has stabilized on an update every two months or so, and we plan to continue to support the game further on.
Imperiumssupported six languages at launch: English, German, French, Spanish, Russian, and Czech. That in itself was a major achievement, and we bow to our community translators not only for managing such a large quantity of texts but for keeping the quality of translations on a top level. Considering the size of our studio and amount of texts that strategy games usually have, six official languages is an amazing feat! That’s just a beginning, though. Several other volunteers have jumped in after release wanting to have Imperiums in their own mother tongue. With their help, players now can play Imperiums in Japanese, Polish, Italian, and Chinese. Ten localizations was far beyond our dreams when we started few years back, and we do our best to keep all these languages up to date for all campaigns both already released and planned. So once again, thank you to our wonderful translators!
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/100197926a17ce81ad0d74b7ee817ff1cddeab8b.png)
We have unfortunately identified some bugs over the two years that were missed during development. There are over 300 fixed bugs in our internal system, and the simplest ones were not even recorded as they were fixed right away. However, we still cannot say that we are done. :) There are currently approximately 200 outstanding bugs, suggestions, possible improvements, and changes that we go through based on priority and time. Many of the changes both implemented and waiting for realization have been added thanks to your suggestions. We are grateful for such active feedback; speaking to our community is important to constantly improve the game, and we hope you will keep the suggestions coming.
We have published two expansion packs in those two years and another one is almost at the door. Four months after release of the main campaign we published Imperiums: Troy, a small tactical scenario with couple of significant changes to game rules, ideal for a one-evening game or a multiplayer game with few friends. This DLC is free as a thank you for your continuous support.
It took us another ten months of hard work to finish the next expansion pack Imperiums: Age of Alexander, a big DLC with a huge map and several significant new features such as units in reserves, regional centers, emissaries, and more granular economic micromanagement.
Imperiums: Age of Alexander
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1520480/header.jpg)
-31% £15.99 £11.03
Both DLCs have received great reviews and they still score 100% on Steam!
Celebrate with us and get the base game and Age of Alexander for a great price now or get the whole bundle with 55% off!
Complete Edition
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/bundles/22898/qo1eomut8y18x6o3/header_ratio.jpg)
Includes 2 items
Imperiums: Greek Wars
Imperiums: Age of Alexander
-56% £40.98 £18.15
And what lies ahead?
You might have already noticed the news about the upcoming DLC Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage. It is shaping up to be the best campaign ever released within the Imperiumsframework. It will include a huge map covering the entire Mediterranean and some of the important neighboring regions. You can try your luck playing any of the 25 playable factions. This expansion pack, like those before, will bring some new elements such as migrating tribes, multiturn events, mandatory objectives, and historical events. We tried with this DLC not to increase the difficulty and complexity of the game but rather expand the existing mechanics and make them more interesting. Our goal was to make the game more alive to increase your immersion and engagement.
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1839160/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839160/Imperiums_Rome_vs_Carthage/
Make sure you have the DLC in your wishlist and don’t miss the launch discount!
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthageis not the end of the Imperiums journey, though. We are already working on another small expansion ideal for a few-evenings game or multiplayer session. The topic and era are very interesting even if a bit obscure. More details will be revealed soon after the release of Rome vs Carthage.
And what else is in the pipeline? We have many plans and hope that this smaller expansion will not be the last one. We would like to publish at least one more major DLC similar in scope and size as Rome vs Carthage
, but this is dependent on the interest in the previous DLCs. So, if you want to support further development, get a copy of Rome vs Carthage! :)
What is left to say… Perhaps a simple “Thank you”! Thank you for the support of our translators, community, testers, and all you players who have bought the game and/or any of the DLCs. And special thanks to players who left a review for the base game as well as for the expansion packs. The game will not be alive without you, so please, stay with us!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Faction Highlights – Black Sea
Fri, August 5, 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_189658e3cd871064be8be27e3348056148b5b019.jpg)
This is where the Hellenic and Persian cultures meet the barbarian way of life - which will prevail is yet to be seen.
This last faction highlight takes us to the Black Sea, another interesting region in the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
DLC. It might seem that all of the world changing events are taking place around the Mediterranean, but perhaps the relative distance from the political scheming of the great powers could be the decisive factor in establishing a new ruling empire.
https://youtu.be/3LAUnSZ-cbE
The nations on the shores of the Black Sea have very different cultures and ambitions, which allows players to try different playstyles and provides great replayability value.
The Bosporan Kingdom, along the northern shore, controls the most economically developed areas of the region. They hold lands along the coast but have not yet managed to secure territories further inland, where their colonization efforts met with the sharp swords of the Scythian warriors. These two nations fight each other relentlessly, neither one has been able to gain the upper hand so far. However, the Sarmatian hordes migrating from the east, may yet even unite these old enemies in the face of a new foe.
The straits between Europe and Asia are occupied by Lysimachus in Thrace and Antigonids in Anatole. They carry on an endless war against each other, both wanting to control the domains of the Black Sea.
In their shadow live the smaller kingdoms of Cappadocia and Armenia, both trying to maintain their relative independence without getting too involved on either side.
The Black Sea hides great potential and many dangers. The differences between the states are deep, unorthodox methods will have to be employed to dominate them, peacefully, or by the sword.
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1839160/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1839160/Imperiums_Rome_vs_Carthage/
Wishlist the new Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC, revive the adventurous spirit within you and unite these seemingly irreconcilable nations.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Release date of Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
Mon, 15 August 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/e3020f384ea6c67308e2252f725db0fdb700fa68.png)
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage to be launched on September 19th.
Hello everyone.
Time to take out your calendars and thick red pen, the Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC will be out on September 19th!
https://youtu.be/PJxkzTT7ojw
The expansion brings you a huge new campaign map and a number of new mechanics that we talked about in Spotlight articles, such as historical events
, plagues
, floods
, social unrest
, and mandatory objectives
. Two additional Spotlight articles will cover the remaining highlights, migrating tribes and additional features.
Wishlist the DLC and get a launch discount or pre-order it now on our website.
We will stream the "dev-play" of the new campaign map on Twitch. Please subscribe to our channel, we cannot wait to show you all the new stuff in this expansion!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Spotlight - Migrating tribes
Thu, August 25, 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_fd11039c97d3e16b7ca034e0246f7d2600e0ee18.jpg)
Learn how migrating tribes can uproot even the most powerful empires in our last Spotlight.
The last but one Spotlight is dedicated to a mechanic that we consider to be a highlight of the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC. Migrating tribes will change the gaming experience into an intense and deep taste of history.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/088b1f01ca6bc75bee948940f2c095d1c49a6d8e.png)
The barbarian tribes that roamed the vast territories beyond the borders of the „civilized“ world were considered primitive savages without any competent leadership. At worst, they could harass border towns, but they were incapable of becoming a major threat to the technically, militarily and economically advanced nations. Nothing is more dangerous than an arrogance that blinds reason.
These people nurture the same desire for a good life and well being as the civilized folk and their leaders are as power hungry as many of the great kings.
Let’s hear from Pavel who will share more details about this new mechanic.
Word from Pavel
It has always been our ambition to make a strategy game that makes the player think one step ahead and plan his actions carefully weighing all his options, sort of chess in the form of a strategic game. Mindless clicking should be limited to a bare minimum and micromanagement that leads to no strategic advantage, should be obliterated. A player should have less tasks during his turns, but they all require close attention as they are important and could potentially change the course of the game.
I can already hear some of your objections and I admit that this approach has its pros and cons. On one hand, it intensifies the feeling that your decisions matter and that they do affect the game developments. It forces you to think about your decisions before you take them and that, at least in my opinion, is a great advantage of this approach. On the other hand, the reduction of the micromanagement duties to a bare minimum could create a feeling there is „not enough to do“. It would of course totally break the deep immersion we strive for, so we have to come up with other ways to keep you entertained and „busy“.
One way is to use a competitive AI that provides a worthy opponent to your efforts, another is the never ending struggle with limited resources. The Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
DLC will introduce a new challenge, in my opinion, one of the best mechanics in the whole Imperiums
series, we have called it Migrating Tribes.
In the Imperiums
base game, independent nations represented by cities without owners have already been implemented. They cannot engage in political negotiations and do not take an active role as the game develops. We have built on this mechanic over time.
First, we changed these lifeless cities into communities capable of self improvement and self defense. They improve their settlements as any other player would and build a small defensive military force. Next came what we call internally “mirror development”, an ability of these cities to “learn” from nearby foreign settlements and adopt their technological achievements. This increases the notion of continual development through natural interaction. Another level was the addition of the so called “territorial behavior”, which allowed the independent nation to protect not only the city itself but also the surrounding area by attacking any foreign units if they violated these invisible borders. These cities grow in size similarly to regular cities, which means that the city perimeter also grows, so it creates an interesting natural barrier to expanding factions. As players have already found out, independent cities are definitely not easy prey and they can often require a substantial force to subdue their tenacity.
Now, the new Migrating Tribes mechanic takes this whole concept to a completely new level. Independent cities are no longer standalone centers passively interacting with their surroundings. The scattered settlements could belong to a single tribe, although they do not form a state. However, they can act together and have a common goal. As an example, take the small communities of the Helveti or Celtiberian people. They function independently of each other, but may have similar interests and in certain situations they would all follow the same line of thinking. Bad harvests might force them from their current territories and they will migrate in similar directions rather than moving around wildly with no logic. Perhaps if rich lands were found further along the river all of their expansion efforts would unanimously follow this route.
All of this should create some very interesting tensions in the game. Individual groups push towards certain regions in a coordinated migration, meeting the factions already settled there. They are no longer just defending their bare livelihoods, but they expand their territories with determination. The “empty” areas on the map, where before, you would usually only encounter small settlements with limited resistance, are now suddenly active and potentially dangerous territories. Resource mines in these lands are no longer low hanging fruit but will be contested. The seemingly uninhabited territories are transformed into true terra incognita, holding hordes of dangerous nomads who can come and ravage your nation. What’s more, there is no political dialogue with them, they only know the power of the sword.
The icing on the cake is the ability of these tribes to establish new kingdoms and hence become a new political faction. For this to happen, a certain predefined number of cities must be associated with the tribe. This number differs based on the tribe and historical cohesion of its members. From mindless standalone cities we have created a potentially dangerous force that bars the way to the expansive efforts of established kingdoms and that also nurtures dormant ambitions that could give rise to a new power capable of winning the game.
As a game designer, I find this mechanic to be a major addition to the upcoming DLC. It makes the game more engaging and fun, as it faithfully illustrates the historical movements of small tribes. The majority of them slid into obscurity over time but a few entered history with an unexpected force leaving a long lasting legacy behind. I hope that you will love this new feature and that Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
will make it to the top of your gaming list and stay there for a long time.
If you hear the horns echoing in the forests on your border, light the warning signal fires, because the danger hidden in the woods is mighty and history has a swift way of dealing with those unprepared for the unexpected.
Don't forget to wishlist the DLC ;)
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
4XGrand StrategyTurn-Based StrategyHistoricalWar
+ Wishlist
Coming Soon
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage Manual
Thu, September 1, 2022
Get familiar with the changes and new features introduced in the upcoming DLC.
Only three more weeks until the long-awaited expansion Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage is released. This DLC does not focus on adding more mechanics to make already a complex game even more difficult, instead we concentrated on improving and building upon existing features to provide you with a truly intense gaming experience. Most of the new features have been covered in the series of Spotlight articles, but for those who want to start planning their strategy, we have some interesting bedtime reading, a comprehensive manual :)
https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1839160/manuals/Manual.pdf?t=1662038916&snr=1_2108_9__2107
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/bbf2083b79819189870db15f6ee5d03a96e43434.png)
The faction choice will be crucial. Italy is on fire with the prolonged wars between the fledgling Roman Republic, Etruscans and Samnites and at this stage none of them is close to final victory. As if this was not enough, the Hellenic League and Carthage are also both trying to use this conflict to strengthen their position in Italy and Sicily.
Greece and Asia are also a war zone between the successor states of Alexander the Great. The powerful Diadochi mercilessly fight each other which endangers the stability of the whole region. Their wars however could be an opportunity for the lesser kingdoms to gain political and military strength.
Finally, the wild tribes living in obscurity of the further corners of the world are fighting for basic survival, still, even these people have the power to change the course of history.
So, tuck the manual in your sleeve and start the game with a battle cry on your lips. Glory and fame await those who show no fear. Are you the one to rule the ancient Mediterranean?
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage – dev pre-release stream
4 Sept 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_a5a5364912fd9d333ee0ebccc03d0597af6d32b1.jpg)
Faction poll is on on the Discord followed by a live preview stream on September 6th.
Hello everyone.
The release of Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage is just two weeks away and some of you asked if Pavel will stream the game before the actual release. Pavel is still in the middle of his conquest of Persia in the Age of Alexander campaign but the temptation to show you the new DLC is too big :)
So let's do it. Pavel will dive into the "Rome vs Carthage" battle on 6th September at 9PM CEST (12PM PDT - 8PM BST).
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/0186e10c03a0670fc43b84af5178920f12712035.png)
Important question, which faction should he play?
We set up a poll on our Discord channel https://discord.com/invite/hq9NC5Qwith five factions you can choose from. We omitted Carthage and Rome on purpose in order not to spoil the fun for you:)
Here is a short description of the initial historical and geographical setup for each faction and a note on what gameplay you can expect:
• Hellenic League
- interesting and diverse start at three different locations. Many potential threats but none of them critical.
• Ptolemaic Kingdom
- peaceful beginning allowing sufficient time and options to build economy and prepare for military campaigns.
• Antigonid Kingdom
- dramatic start with enemies all around. It is all about diplomacy and tactics.
• Lysimachus
- easy start with clear goals. Diplomacy is key.
• Samnites
- dangerous situation from the start with all-is-at-stake battles right at the beginning. A bad start can turn into defeat in several turns, a very tactical game.
So, leave your vote and join us on Tuesday 6th on our Twitch channel twitch.tv/kube_games or alternatively on our Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/KubeGames
As always, Pavel will be happy to answer your questions during the stream.
Don't miss it!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.2.6. Get ready for Rome
Thu, 8 September 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/e15582dfa97524dc40f2635dd8017c4d6e758a66.png)
Hello everyone.
Summer months always fly by too quickly and we hope that you made the best of that time with some great vacation memories in store for the colder months:)
We released the last regular update at the end of June and we have kept ourselves busy since then finishing the new Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC.
As always, we keep working on the base game core and there are many interesting improvements in the new update of version 1.2.6.
called "Get ready for Rome".
Once again, a big thanks to our players and community for their feedback and reports that inspired many of the aforementioned improvements and bug fixes, so please keep it coming.
Let's get to the details:
Some of the 3D models such as blacksmith, stable and shipyard have been remade, with fort and defensive wall in the making and new city models further in the pipeline.
Trade routes can now go through unowned territories hidden in the fog of war (previously, trade routes were automatically cancelled when parts of their routes through unowned territories were not fully visible).
Strategic Overview
was extended by "grouped map item types". For now, three groups were added - military, mines, and buildings which allows you to get a better picture of the whole economic and military situation.
Strategic Overview
in the list view now automatically scrolls to the currently selected map item and highlights it.
New keyboard shortcut was added to the Strategic Overview
- pressing Tab now instantly switches between map and list views.
Brief description per faction was added to the New Game window
containing information about the initial setup and how difficult the start will be.
"Tooltip delay" game setting was implemented.
"Map exchange" treaty importance was increased. It is now one of the most "intimate" treaties (apart from military pacts).
Set of positions where particular buildings cannot be built is newly defined for all scenarios (this should prevent exploits such as blocking certain straits by shipyards).
Food production of scrubs was slightly increased.
Trade loss information was added to the tooltip in the Political Map
.
The Research progress bar
is always visible even when there is nothing being researched. This should make it easier for you to navigate to the Technology Tree
and draw your attention to the fact that you are not researching anything.
Report panel
stops the automatic scrolling when you first click on an item in the list.
Tooltip comparing governments (when you want to choose a new government) was improved.
Using "Alert
" action now also adds dismissed units to the unit loop.
Rewards received for completed Objectives are now better arranged in the information window.
When you click on the fake lock when selecting a faction in the New Game window
, a window with a warning pops up and once you confirm your selection, this particular faction will be automatically checked (previously you had to check it manually again).
The AI was also improved in a number of aspects:
AI more adequately reacts to certain events happening to other members of its union as well as events related to its master (such as losing the capital city).
When AI considers how and where to attack an enemy, it takes more into consideration its resource situation and its current needs. If AI is in need of a particular resource, it might redirect the attack to a particular mine(s) or certain producer.
AI will not build fields/farms anymore on tiles outside of the city range.
Improved algorithm in charge of newly built units (and their types).
Improved algorithm for keeping all units supplied.
Movement of Generals was improved.
Bugs and issues fixed:
Too loud intros were tuned down (player's game settings).
Small issue in "Teach technology" action was fixed (you could not teach a technology to your own confederation members).
An issue with building and repairing a temple causing city damages (in particular, when the number of local citizens was low) was fixed.
Small fixes in Objectives and Achievements related to your federation members was fixed.
An issue with Generals deserting when they were in "containers" (like a city) was fixed.
When two factions join in a federation and the member state already has some confederation members, these member states stay as confederation members also in the newly created federation (previously they all turned into federations).
The list of unit improvements checkboxes on the right side of the Strategic Overview
was not positioned correctly when UI scaling was active.
Strange bug which was creating more factions with the same name and banner in custom worlds was fixed.
An issue with very weak Hades Warriors was fixed.
Several rare CTDs fixed.
How do you like the changes? Are there any which you consider substantial "quality-of-life" improvements? Share your thoughts with us:)
We are less than two weeks away from the release of Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
. Don't forget to wishlist it and get the release discount!
See you in Roma. Or Carthago. Or Alexandria?
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Faction Highlights – Central Mediterranean
Mon, 12 September 2022
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_f4c17870b277b1fc6628afa312bd1f9879e4e0b8.jpg)
The wars to dominate Italy and Sicily may give rise to a new superpower.
We will visit the Central Mediterranean region in this Faction Highlight.
Italy is on fire and larger empires circle around like birds of prey, just waiting for their chance to benefit from the spoils of the war. The Central Mediterranean will be one of the places where history is made in the upcoming Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC.
https://youtu.be/JG1v3jvBqmw
The Central Mediterranean has for a long time been the domain of Carthage and the Greeks. Italy has been divided among small Latin tribes, none of which managed to unite them under one leadership or usurp power over them by force. Now, it seems that the events are taking a new unexpected course, that could bring many gains to those who can navigate the situation with boldness.
The recently established Roman Republic has managed to alienate all of the other Latin tribes and it now faces a military pact of Samnites and Etruscans supported by Gauls. This alliance could attack Roman lands from many directions simultaneously, if they can only coordinate their actions and subordinate their own interests to the joint plan for a time.
These new developments are followed closely by the Epirean king Pyrrhus, as well as Carthage, both of whom have their own plans in the region. The island of Sicily and Magna Graecia, the southern part of the Italian peninsula, are contested by both sides. Success would provide a firm foothold and strong base for further expansion to the rest of the peninsula.
Standing aside from this central conflict are the Illyrian tribes on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. They are much more occupied with the wars in Greece and Macedon to become actively involved in Italy.
Italy is rich in resources and fertile lands, whoever controls the region can quickly rise to dominate the whole Mediterranean. The whole situation is waiting in suspense for a leader to set the path of victory.
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
4XGrand StrategyTurn-Based StrategyHistoricalWar
+ Wishlist
Coming Soon
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage
Wishlist the Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC
and be the one to start writing new chapters of European history!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage – dev pre-release stream II
Thur 15 Sept
Rome vs Carthage is just few days ahead so let's give you a taste of what is coming in another Dev preview stream.
Hello everyone.
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage will be here in just few days so let's give you a taste of what is coming in another Dev preview stream this Friday on our Twitch
and Youtube.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/0186e10c03a0670fc43b84af5178920f12712035.png)
The previous stream was a bit of a surprise even for Pavel:)
Playing Samnites, he was defeated by the Romans in several turns. Well, these things happen. He then turned down the Illyrian proposal to lead them in their own struggles and rather started a new game playing Antigonid Kingdom to show a different play style. It went quite well as he was able to withstand the pressure from all the other Diadochi and even make a small progress against Seleucid Empire.
This time Pavel will be playing Epirus to show you another interesting and very dynamic region of the map. It should be a fast-paced game and definitely not an easy one.
As always, Pavel will be happy to answer your questions and explain in detail new features of the upcoming DLC.
We will stream on Friday evening (16th September) at 9PM CEST (12PM PDT - 8PM BST). Join Pavel who will battle against the odds in the thrilling world of Rome vs Carthage.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
Upcoming Event Starts Fri, 16 September 2022
-
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage finally out!
Mon, September 19, 2022
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage DLC is released with a time limited launch discount.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/c0ada39c5b32c77347d6160c09c183f9c7be8c09.png)
The day is finally here! Almost a year after the Age of Alexander, the first big DLC, you can now start a new grand campaign with the Rome vs Carthage expansion.
We have spent many days and nights testing the game greatly enjoying the twists and turns, often being caught by the „one more turn“ compulsion in the middle of the night:)
You are in for a treat so fire up your machines, the Roman spears are sharp and ready to stab at anyone standing in their way.
Buy from the devs website direct to support them and get a great discount
The background story is probably clear from the title. It is 301BC, Carthage is the ruling power in the western and central Mediterranean. The generals of Alexander the Great, the Diadochi, fight mercilessly among each other in the east trying to restore the glory of the former Macedonian empire. All the while the Roman Republic is gaining the upper hand in Italy and gathers strength for the greatest expansion of all time. Will they succeed and eventually rule the Mediterranean?
Each battlefield requires a different strategy as every faction must react to different needs and face different dangers.
There are very interesting new features apart from the huge map with 25 playable factions:
Migrating tribes will challenge anyone daring to explore the wilderness beyond the borders of the civilized world.
Multiturn events such as plague, revolts and floods allow you to change the outcome through prompt actions.
Mandatory Objectives will make strategic decisions even more important than before.
Historical events provide more immersion and an authentic feel.
And much more!
https://youtu.be/PJxkzTT7ojw
You can now purchase the DLC on its own or in a Complete edition bundle together with the vanilla game Imperiums: Greek Wars and the Imperiums: Age of Alexander DLC or newly in a Complete your set bundle. All have a limited launch discount.
You can also purchase the DLC separately on our website; by doing so you will support the dev team directly and be able to get a better price! http://imperiumsgame.com/
We would like to thank you for the support and encourage you to leave a review of the DLC on Steam. Feel free to share your ideas, suggestions, and opinions with us on our Steam forum and Discord.
If you like the game, tell your friends, a personal recommendation is worth a hundred reviews!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.3.1. Color Schemes
Wed, 9 November 2022
Hello everyone.
The latest expansion Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage was released almost two months ago and we are very happy to see how popular it has become. We are also grateful for all the feedback on our Steam forum and through reviews.
The positive reception of the DLC gave us the boost we needed and we are now full at speed working on the next expansion pack, but as always we dedicate substantial time for updates, improvements and bug fixing based on your feedback and suggestions.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/a53859bbf47ad6ec2c25cdefb45aa089692f6da5.png)
The next update called "Color schemes", a version 1.3.1. brings many interesting improvements. Details in the changelog below:
MAIN IMPROVEMENTS:
Birth rate support mechanism was improved by adding a grant limit based on city size. This allows you to set a maximum size for a particular city (on local level) or all cities in general (on global level) and limit the birth rate support for cities that exceed the set size. It should make the management of birth support easier, especially for bigger empires. (This improvement was suggested by Guirai in Steam forum)
Terrain color schemes were implemented. You can now choose from several different color schemes the one that best fits your taste. Go to Game settings -> Player settings -> Advanced settings -> Color scheme. We would appreciate your thoughts on the various color palettes, which ones do you like and why?
Terrain textures and overall readability of the map was improved, including changes in terrain textures, tweaking a number of static geometry objects (trees, bushes) and other.
Mandatory objectives were implemented in the Age of Alexander, Ancient Greece (vanilla) and Peloponnese scenarios. It is an optional mechanic that will have impact on new games only.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS:
Ambiguous mandatory objectives have been removed from the mandatory objectives list but stay in as generic objectives (per suggestion from MiyabiSFG).
Impact of the "Influence" action of a General has been tweaked by taking into account how far he is from his country. The odds of him successfully initiating a revolt in a foreign city, resulting in the city changing ownership to your faction decrease with the distance he is from his motherland. The actual chance of a revolt stays the same but could result in a city becoming independent or joining another nearby faction (based on feedback on Steam forum).
"Center on preset position" functionality was added. It is an extension of a "center on unit" functionality allowing you to center the camera on a selected map item in the exactly same angle and height. This way, you can make nice time lapse sequences taken from the same position.
New kingdoms established by the migrating tribes are now more prone to quick collapse at the beginning of their existence.
The ability of Heroes and Emissaries to survive an attack and cause considerable damage to an attacker was reduced. These units are now very vulnerable to any attack.
Proposal offering to lead another country (when the player is defeated), was improved to reflect the historical relations and current proximity. The loading of a save game was accelerated. Number of improvements to lower the memory consumption were implemented. Rome vs Carthage DLC was further balanced, especially Macedonia faction setup (based on feedback from Steam forum).
Error report tool was further improved. All the city names and territories were translated to Japanese.
Updated translations for Japanese and German.
AI IMPROVEMENTS:
AI stops proposing trade deals when the demanded amount of food is near the limit of the player's capacity.
AI proposing unions of any type (confederation, federation or absorption) was further improved.
Rare bug showing an empty field where a reason for the AI rejecting certain diplomatic proposals (like accepting treaties) should have been, was fixed.
BUGS AND ISSUES FIXED:
Roman basic units - Milites - were able to cross rivers. This is not possible anymore.
The flag pole for Generals in "incognito" mode was still showing faction color (even if it shouldn’t) was fixed.
Quickload and quicksave in multiplayer games were disabled.
Loading the game for the first time (when vanilla and DLCs are purchased together) was loading the new DLC straight away. This was fixed so that the vanilla mod is loaded first to allow the player to go through the tutorial.
Bug when a player could not recruit a new unit in a particular situation, was fixed.
Cancelled federation or confederation leading to incorrect owner changes for units such as Emissary, Sage and General. This is now fixed.
Bug allowing a unit placed in reserve in a city to perform the "influence tiles" action, was fixed.
Bug allowing a General to incite unrest while still aboard a ship, was fixed.
Bug allowing stables to have multiple specialization was fixed (thanks to Altruist and his forum post)
Very specific and rare "deadlock" in AI algorithm was fixed.
Couple of rare CTDs were fixed.
We hope that you enjoy all these improvements. Keep the suggestions coming!
If you like the game and particularly the new DLC, we would be grateful for a review. Players usually don't write reviews on DLCs which is a bit of a shame because other players might definitely appreciate your opinion.
Enjoy the fall and stay with us:)
Yours,
Kube Games
team.
P.S. First news about the next DLC should be ready soon, so stay tuned :)
-
New DLC Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
Wed, December 21, 2022
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/36085766/d1a8238cd6f21520f7549d086ab4373b6d41322d.png)
A new DLC Imperiums: Rise of Caesar in the making.
Hello,
Xmas is coming and with it a small gift to our faithful community :) You've probably heard the rumors that we are working on the next DLC, so here is the official announcement of what is coming to Steam next Spring!
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/7471cf311cf1afe3507649247210fe807722bc52.png)
Imperiums: Rome vs Carthage shifted the focus from the Greek and Persian wars to the central Mediterranean, where the young Roman Republic was trying to dominate the Italian peninsula in the endless tribal wars against its neighbors. However, it’s path to hegemony did not end there, the scene is set for another interesting era, the power struggle between the Senate and the consuls, among which one name stands out, Julius Caesar!
The Imperiums ancient series simply will not be complete without the conquests of Caesar in Gaul and the British Isles.
https://youtu.be/ARoxKFQ56EY
The new DLC Imperiums: Rise of Caesar brings you TWO campaign maps, Gaul and the British Isles. After your legions complete the invasion of the Gallic territories you can sail across the channel to enter the mysterious British Isles. Alternatively, you can defy the Romans by playing one of the Gallic tribes and try to change history as we know it.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/bae7f01c75fb7ab3cbe7a67d437191d99639784a.png)
The maps are smaller than in Rome vs Carthage, being much more tactical and the new mechanics will test your tactical prowess to the limit. Weather and seasons will complicate the planning of military offensives, the recruitment of new legions has to be earned by the completion of tasks or through political scheming in Rome, Caesar can be used in the front lines as a general, and key political decisions will affect the course of events.
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/6a286ea998dab50bc11feac55eab7123d7d4b650.png)
The Gods of war are unleashed!
Add Imperiums: Rise of Caesar to your wishlist now, not only you support our team but you can be sure not to miss the launch discount!
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2250440/Imperiums_Rise_of_Caesar/
Q2 2023
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.3.2. Defensive structures
Tue, 28 March 2023
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_e6dfdef124f98578e6b23c568fac827871963ef1.jpg)
Hello everyone.
The days are getting longer and nature is waking up again, so it is time for a new build, version 1.3.2. called "Defensive structures".
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/59da60d949adeb5e6d613627f83f55cc548e4f24.png)
We are also working hard on the new DLC Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
so if you haven't added it to your wishlist yet, do it now to claim the release discount.
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2250440/Imperiums_Rise_of_Caesar/
What has been improved in the new version:
MAIN IMPROVEMENTS:
Terrain look was improved.
New models and icons of forts and defensive walls were added.
New window added when you start a new game, summarizing the changes of that particular DLC.
Tutorial button is now present in all the official mods, making it easier to come back to it.
Slow convergence of Army Morale as a result of government changes (instead of instant change) was implemented (based on Kaysoky's suggestion on Steam forum
).
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS:
Preventing misclicks when a unit has moved but the unit selection has not yet switched to the next unit.
The list of potential improvements and trainings is now sorted per availability.
Text of the tutorial has been updated to explain some actions more clearly.
Performance improvement from fine tuning of bitmaps.
When joining a PBEM game, a tooltip notifies you that you haven't filled in the email address.
Updated Russian, German, French, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Czech and Chinese.
First Korean translations added. We are now looking for volunteers to help with proofreading!
AI IMPROVEMENTS:
AI is now capable of building forts and defensive walls and actively uses them.
Neutral factions can build boats and disembark units.
BUGS AND ISSUES FIXED:
An issue with default birth rate support (per city) when a confederation is revoked.
An exploit when a player was selling a unit.
An issue when a General declares a new state based on a member of a current confederation (General is NOT at war with neither the original faction, nor its master).
An issue with birth rate support in cities that are trading posts when a player has not enough resources to support such a grant.
Further logging of a couple of issues added.
Couple of rare CTDs were fixed.
We hope you will enjoy the next game, let us know how you like the improved terrain look and 3D models.
Enjoy the Spring!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Spotlight - Weather and Seasons
Sat, 20 May 2023
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_3063418cce807688ac4339aea1790e82480efc51.jpg)
Ancient Gaul is a dangerous place in itself and its extreme weather can add further complications.
We are back with our Spotlight series, with each article focused on one new mechanic that appears in the new DLC Imperiums: Rise of Caesar. Today, we will talk about Weather and Seasons, a new concept that greatly enhances the tactical dimension of the game.
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans//36085766/990238b547de13614414514cb8db485d14a8c25c.png)
Far north beyond the Alps, the weather is not as mild and pleasant as around the Mediterranean. The often harsh conditions make the lands inhospitable and its people tough, they are used to living on the edge of survival. There are no roads to make traveling through the dense forests and boggy swamps easier. The tribal settlements are often hostile, so the building and guarding of military camps is a matter of survival.
Spring comes with rain that turns the few paths into muddy slides, while the air in hot summers buzzes with mosquitoes. Autumn brings early snow and the freezing temperatures of the winters can leave the most resilient of men weak and exhausted.
Pavel, the main developer and game designer, will share his views on how this mechanic is incorporated into the game.
Previous campaign maps have turns lasting a month, a quarter or even half a year and as such, it made no sense to implement more tactical mechanics. Perhaps with the exception of a „battle view“ and even here the possibilities would be quite limited. Besides, this is not a direction which we want to go in right now.
The Rise of Ceasar
DLC has a different time scale and turn length compared to previous campaign maps, which was a major factor in shaping our decisions about what changes to implement.
The fact that one turn in the Rise of Caesar
DLC equates to one week dramatically changed our options for adding more tactical elements to the game. The most important one is Weather and Seasons.
The mechanic has 3 elements – rain and snow, snow cover and temperature. Let’s dive into each of them now.
Rain and snow (depending on temperature) lowers the mobility of units and reduces the effectiveness of supply lines. Both phenomena move across the map with the wind. Tiles where it was snowing the turn before will be covered with a snow crust (this also reduces the mobility of units and the effectiveness of supply lines but to a lesser extent than snowing itself). The snow cover stays on the tiles until the temperature rises above 0°C.
Temperatures change over the seasons. Most of the time you will not need to pay extra attention to it, however it will become an important factor when it gets to more extreme levels (above 30°C or below -5°C). In such cases, all units not stationed in or close to a city will be affected by the extreme weather.
In hot conditions their battle readiness is temporarily reduced (the men are exhausted), but it will return to its original level when the temperature drops. The health of units exposed to freezing temperatures below -5°C is negatively affected with every turn the situation lasts. This is a more permanent effect on health that does not automatically recover when the temperature rises, any units affected will need healing before they reach full battle readiness again.
A new Weather panel above the Map Menu has been added, this indicates the weather for the current turn and a forecast for the coming turn. It shows the temperature, the weather and the wind direction for the current turn (wind direction is important to give you an idea of how the weather will develop for the coming turn). Forecasts are only indicative and should be viewed accordingly.
Special warnings are displayed when snow, rain and/or extreme temperatures are forecast for the coming turn. This notification can be disabled directly in the Weather panel if so desired.
I consider this mechanic to be the most interesting new concept in the DLC. It greatly expands the tactical dimensions of the game and forces you to plan your campaigns as well as any backup plans to account for the effects of winter and the actual weather. Caesar himself had to plan his conquests in a similar way, winter was too unpredictable and campaigning too risky.
It is said that you might lose a battle but still win the war, but in Imperiums: Rise of Caesar one lost battle could be the end of your military career. It requires a true tactical genius to balance the risks. The Gallic bogs are full of Romans who will not return home.
If you haven’t done so, please add Imperiums: Rise of Caesar to your wishlist.
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/header.jpg?t=1683106395)
Q3 2023
Thank you for the continuous support!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Faction Highlights – British Isles
Thu, July 6, 2023
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_e6dfdef124f98578e6b23c568fac827871963ef1.jpg)
The British Isles have not yet been contested by a foreign power but that is about to change soon.
The second campaign map of Imperiums: Rise of Caesar DLC is focused on the conquests of Germania and the British Isles. The Romans have already taken Gaul but the great Roman general Julius Caesar will not stop until he triumphs over all the northern barbarian tribes.
https://youtu.be/Lip24D8g36E
The British Isles are a remote corner of the known world, largely isolated from the world’s political and military turmoil.
The south of the British Isles is inhabited by Britons. Although densely forested, the coastal areas are fertile lowlands with a number of prosperous cities, while the highlands hide rich mineral deposits.
North of the Isles is true wilderness, only scarcely populated by Caledonians, tough and unforgiving people used to life at the edge of survival.
The island of Hibernia is equally undeveloped, supporting only small clans vaguely related to the Caledonians.
The Britons are aware of the Roman conquest in Gaul but care very little about the developments in Germania east of the Rhenus River.
The remoteness of the islands has kept them safe from any foreign invasion so far, but the ambitious Roman general Julius Caesar wants to bring Roman culture here with the tip of his sword if necessary.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Faction Highlights – Roman Galia
Sun, 8 October 2023
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_bdaf59b67f3f043b1effdfe966ce45d96930f65e.jpg)
The conquest of Gaul is completed but there are new enemies waiting to meet the Roman legions.
The Gallic lands have submitted to Roman rule and a new campaign map still within the Imperiums: Rise of Caesar DLC takes you to the next phase of the conquests of Julius Caesar.
https://youtu.be/jQXz9dVo2pI
The great Julius Caesar conquered the whole of Gaul but the pride of its people has not been broken.
Yet Caesar’s ambitions are far greater. The river Rhenus creates a frontier between Roman Galia and Germania. A decisive victory over the Suebi tribes living there would make Caesar a Roman hero forever. The conflict seems inevitable.
The British Isles that sometimes appears out of the mist tickles his imagination. The prosperous coastal cities of the Britons are known to Roman traders but what lies beyond them is veiled in mystery.
Caesar is adamant to fly the Roman eagle above the heads of the Germanic and Briton peoples, but neither of them will give him an easy path to victory.
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2250440/Imperiums_Rise_of_Caesar/
Coming Soon Q4 2023 + Wishlist
Add Imperiums: Rise of Caesar to your wishlist and see if you could march in Caesar’s footsteps through the wild lands of Gaul, Germania and eventually the British Isles.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Spotlight - Time scale
Sun, November 12, 2023
(https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_3063418cce807688ac4339aea1790e82480efc51.jpg)
Your resources are limited, no time to take a break, your enemy is relentless.
We have already mentioned some of the changes that will be introduced to the game along with the new time scale. We will no longer operate in years and seasons, but in weeks. This affects many of the existing mechanics but also gives us a chance to introduce some new ones, such as 'Politics in Rome'.
Today´s spotlight will focus on the changes that are less visible but no less important.
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/4977d1201b62347d9a83acf446a13f6d80972aae.png)
Having a long-term strategy is essential for planning a lengthy war campaign. However, once the conquest starts, you need to operate on a much shorter time scale. Taxes that will fill your coffers over a year will not help you pay a group of mercenaries right now. The training of new soldiers takes time and conscripting all able men immediately would cripple your economy. As the campaign starts your most urgent need is men.
Let Pavel explain how citizens have become the most crucial of resources.
Word from Pavel {Game designer)
A number of challenges and new possibilities appeared when we introduced the new time scale into the Rise of Caesar DLC. We could implement the Weather and Seasonsvmechanic and we had to create an alternative to the classical tech tree by implementing the 'Politics in Rome'. So, what else has changed?
Let's start with citizens. The population growth mechanic did not convert sensibly to a weekly time scale, because one year in the new DLC could see the population double or even triple. Balancing this mechanic led to an interesting outcome, the population was hardly growing between turns. The natural consequence of this has made citizens the most important resource, more so than even gold, iron or stones.
Military strategy is affected, armies are made of soldiers and they in turn are recruited from citizens. With soldiers so precious, the more costly and lengthy ways of maintaining armies, such as their healing in cities, need to be planned very carefully as losing soldiers can become a real problem.
Settlers are also affected by the slowed population growth. The "execution time" of certain actions has been modified to the new time scale, e.g. building a road, constructing a bridge, building a farm and chopping wood. With these actions now taking longer, alongside the fact that settlers cannot be "created" so easily any more, means that the whole development of the map slows down significantly. Careful consideration will be required for construction projects as well as supply lines, essential for any military advances.
You as Caesar are not the absolute leader of Rome, you are a consul in one of the Roman provinces and obedient to the Senate and the will of the people. You cannot build legions yourself, if you need another legion to boost the four you have, you will have to navigate through a labyrinth of political intrigues. It is possible for you to train inferior units to supplement your battle hardened legionaries and use these troops to somehow get by. After all, part of Caesar's military genius was turning lost battles into victories.
The changes to the time scale have made the new DLC much more tactical and the Roman Republic a very specific and interesting faction. This DLC will really push your strategic and tactical thinking to the limits, the action has not slowed, you will have to be on your toes and alert from the moment you step into Gallic territory all the way to the Scottish highlands.
Caesar's tactical skills made him an unpredictable and dangerous man, he could always find a solution to an impossible situation. This made him a hero amongst his troops and the people of Rome. Can you follow him with limited resources and move forward no matter how difficult the road seems to be?
All these changes definitely push the Imperiumsvseries another step forward and bring a very different feel to the gameplay. Please take a moment and wishlist the upcoming DLCvand subscribe to our channel. A few more spotlights are still in the pipeline so stay tuned!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
What's in The Kube? Small and big news
Mon, January 1, 2024
Read all the news – small and big – about Kube Games.
Hello everyone.
We want to wish you all Happy New Year filled with many memorable moments. The end-of-the-year festivities are over, and we returned to our desks with renewed enthusiasm. There has been a lot going on at the end of the last year although it might not have looked so from the outside.
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/d19c10a7d00b274d1c4354fce5c7f74083e12c33.png)
Most of our time was taken by finishing the long-awaited DLC called "Rise of Caesar". It is going to be a very different expansion from the previous DLCs, and we can’t wait for you to try it out. The more we play it, the more we like it and hopefully you will too.
There have already been few Faction highlight videos and several Spotlights explaining the mechanics of the DLC, and more is about to come. We plan a limited release discount, so wishlist the DLC if you haven’t done so yet. 😊
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2250440/Imperiums_Rise_of_Caesar/
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
The next big chunk of our time was taken by our new project. The new game is still at a very early stage but requires more and more attention as it grows. We already got some testing 3D models and music tracks done as well as prototyped terrain. We’re eager to share the first looks with you, but you will have to be a bit patient with us as there are other tasks to be finished first. If you want to support us, please subscribe to our Developer page here on Steam (Steam does not allow regular news about another game posted on different game’s Steam page). https://store.steampowered.com/developer/Kube_Games
As if there was not enough work already, an early Xmas gift was delivered to Kube Games in December. Our first game, Aggressors: Ancient Rome
, has come back “home” (the rights to publish it were transferred from the publisher back to the dev studio). We needed to prepare an update with some bug fixes and improvements.
If you haven't heard about the game yet, check it out. Even though Imperiums is pretty much a descendant of Aggressors
, Aggressors
has its own charm with a different campaign map and simpler rules. If you want to support us in our indie endeavors, please buy the game, we would really appreciate it
.
Aggressors: Ancient Rome
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/783210/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/783210/Aggressors_Ancient_Rome/
-80% £24.99 £4.99
The rest of our time we spent on preparing a new Imperiumsversion v1.3.3. with a huge number of improvements and fixes.
This is pretty much all from our Kube Games newsroom 😊
Thank you all for the great support we received last year and …Stay with us!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Spotlight - Scenario transition
Sat, 6 January 2024
The conquest of Gaul opens the way to the mysterious British Isles. The quest for wealth and glory continues.
Today's Spotlight will focus on one of the most interesting new mechanics that will appear in the Rise of Caesar expansion, Scenario Transition.
Given the number of questions and requests we have had on this topic it is clear that it is one of the top additions many players wish to see in the game. We have been considering it for a long time and it is definitely something we want to continue building on.
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/837a39746e6689011f50b9f6b27d3b8d73a97df3.png)
When Caesar conquered Gaul, he already was a Roman hero. However, as he stood at the northern coast looking across the misty Channel, thinking about the mysterious land and the tribes that inhabited it, he knew that his quest must continue. This next conquest would be the continuation of his life's efforts, using the experience of his legionaries, the infrastructure he built in Gaul, and all the skills and experience he had gathered in the many battles with the Celts.
Let's give the word to Pavel, our lead developer, to tell you in detail how this will work in game.
Transition between scenarios has been on the waiting list for a long time. It was logical due to our chronological approach to the DLCs and something I personally really enjoy in other games, e.g. in Panzer General where I could take my well trained units into the next battle. However, this functionality is quite difficult to implement (more than you might think!) and many questions had to be answered first, such as:
What should be transitioned - units, cities, roads, terrain modifications, diplomacy relations, tech tree, or even resources?
How will the transition affect the game difficulty and still align with the preferred level of the player?
Should the transition be automatic or player-specific?
What will trigger the transition?
Should all factions be allowed to use this mechanic?
and so on.
Apart from this, there were a number of technical issues I had to consider:
The more things you allow to transition, the more "skewed" the scenario will be when compared to the stand alone scenario (with its fixed initial setup and balancing).
For example, if one faction should struggle with a lack of food in the second scenario but terrain improvements are transitioned from the first scenario, it would instantly solve the food problem and completely change the balance of things.
Similarly, bringing experienced units into the second scenario will affect the balancing. Things such as this could break the historical immersion.
How will the cities be transitioned regarding their size, name and improvements? Will Lutetia still be Lutetia in the second scenario if the player renamed it to Paris?
The list could go on, but you get the idea ...
So what approach have we taken?
Considering all of the above, it will be possible to transition units, cities, roads, terrain modifications, "Politics in Rome
" (alternation to the Tech tree in other expansions) and partially the diplomacy relations. Resources on the other hand, will not be transitioned as it would unbalance the whole scenario instantly.
The transition is automatic, the player cannot choose what will or will not be transitioned, this will be taken care of by the transition balance algorithm. Even though players would certainly appreciate it if they could select the units they want to take with them, it would be near to impossible to balance. In this case, if a player has too many experienced units in the first scenario, only some of them will be transitioned.
When certain trigger conditions are met, a pop-up window will ask a player if he wants to move to the second scenario. There is no way of delaying this decision, no "ask me later" option. Do you want to move on to the next quest or do you want to keep playing and lose the possibility of smoothly jumping from one scenario to another?
Transition is only allowed for the Roman Republic faction as it would have been historically very inaccurate to enable this for other factions.
Very interesting is the transition of diplomacy relations and factions in general. We created a very flexible way how factions are "taken" to the second scenario, allowing for example the transition even before Gaul is defeated. This would lead to the opening of a second front while still fighting the hostile Gauls at the same borders and battlefronts of the first scenario.
All in all, I am quite happy that we have managed to implement this mechanic and with how it works. It is very flexible, allowing us to build on it in other potential DLCs while being also quite accessible to the modders.
No true conqueror could look into the fog hanging low on the sea and not dream of the next great conquest, especially when the knowledge of what is on the other side is veiled in mystery. Seize the opportunity, earn your glory, or die trying!
The release of the Rise of Caesar
expansion is getting closer every day, so please don't forget to wishlist it and claim the release discount. We would also appreciate it if you subscribe to our company channel. We hope to have news about our next game soon!
Please, stay tuned for more.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar Manual
Thu, 11 January 2024
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_bdaf59b67f3f043b1effdfe966ce45d96930f65e.jpg)
Detailed manual for your bedtime reading.
The release of the new Imperiums: Rise of Caesar DLC is literally a few weeks away and many of you are already dreaming about great victories in Gaul and Britain. Well, patience is a virtue 😊 but we still have some teasers coming in the following days and weeks to help you with the wait.
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/273180b63f61be666d4a320277802caa37587291.png)
https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/manuals/Manual.pdf
The goal of this DLC was to bring something very new and fresh into the series so a number of new features have been introduced. Most of these have been covered in the series of Spotlight articles, however if you want more detail here is The Manual. This secret book will guide your campaign and provide nuggets of wisdom for the greatest military adventure of your life.
The DLC comes with two smaller maps, Gaul and Britannia. The new mechanics, particularly the change of time scale, weather and seasons will have a profound effect on how you plan your campaign. The game is much more tactical and one wrong decision may cost you dearly.
Lead your units well in Gaul and you will transition directly into the British Isles scenario. You will start the Roman conquest of Britain with your state of affairs and units as they were when you finished your conquest of Gaul.
Naturally, you can also try and stop the Roman advance north by playing as a leader of one of the Gallic, Celtic or Germanic tribes. The maps can be also played separately to allow you to experiment with different playstyles.
Can you follow in the footsteps of a legend or will you bury the Roman aquila at the foot of the Alps forever?
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Version 1.3.3. Caesar's legacy
Thu, January 18, 2024
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/1183470/ss_4f07d564c910b4df5eb9e22d3ce489d06904bddf.jpg)
Hello everyone.
It has been a while since the release of the last major update and it is high time for a new one. We have put a lot of work into improving the game experience, hopefully you will see this too.
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/1e86375aeff07d2909d59fcba9fc2cb2b5daf98a.png)
MAIN IMPROVEMENTS:
History replay can be now exported to GIF directly in game.
State decisions tooltip shows the impact of the action.
Affiliation (tribe name) is now being displayed for independent units when they move or attack.
New attribute called „aversion“ was implemented, this affects how likely the factions are to cooperate, form alliances etc. Further work is planned on this attribute.
New menu item opening the list of existing DLCs was added to the Main Menu.
New icon showing what map item (e.g. a city, blacksmith, stable) is busy, was added to the Strategic Overview (in map view).
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS:
Player can choose specialization of a new stable and shipyard immediately.
Invention tree displaying speed was increased.
„Agoge Training“ State Decision was improved.
Loading saved games was improved and it is faster now.
Confirmation is required now before starting tutorial.
City demands were limited to one per city.
Several State Decisions were altered to not upgrade Nomads to Settlers.
Korean and Portuguese languages were added to the pool of experimental languages (please get in touch if you would like to help with translations and/or proofreading).
AI IMPROVEMENTS:
AI behavior when it was selling city walls in the Troy scenario, was adjusted.
Improvements in selecting attack targets.
Improvements in choosing what to build next.
Improvements in supply usage.
Excessive recruitment of nomads was mitigated.
Algorithm to build less ships on lakes was improved.
Prediction for absorption was not correctly calculated, this has been remedied.
BUGS AND ISSUES FIXED:
Bug in supply calculation was fixed.
Emissaries not being part of the unit loop in particular cases, was fixed.
Issues caused by mod not being switched to vanilla when starting a tutorial in one of the DLCs, fixed.
Missing popup when a city or a unit was captured as prisoner of war, fixed.
Incorrect resource calculation was displayed when building regional capital.
Issues with scrolling down to the bottom of the list in the Strategic Overview, fixed.
Minor issues with triggering Victory Conditions were fixed.
Several issues in multiplayer (both online and asynchronous) were fixed.
An issue in Windows 11 causing the intro video not being played, was fixed.
Bug in „Slander“ action causing malfunction was fixed.
Several rare CTDs were fixed.
Many other minor bugs were fixed.
Let’s give Imperiums a try again to test all these changes in action 😊 and to get ready for the Rise of Caesar DLC. This update is called "Caesar's legacy" after all :).
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar release date
Thu, January 25, 2024
(https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/36085766/d1a8238cd6f21520f7549d086ab4373b6d41322d.png)
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar will be out on February 15th!
Hello everyone,
The date is finally set, the dice are cast, Roman legionaries are marching towards Gaul for the long awaited conquest of the northern territories - Imperiums: Rise of Caesar will be released on February 15th!
https://youtu.be/xYQQ8us8eTQ
This is a totally new take on the Imperiums games with two consecutive maps of the Roman campaigns in Gaul and Britannia and a number of new mechanics.
A different time scale, changes of seasons and the presence of commanders make the game much more tactical. At the same time the high political games played in Rome and around the Mediterranean make the game more immersive. The transition between the campaign maps allows you to continue the successful conquest in Gaul by taking your Roman aquila to Britannia.
Add the DLC to your wishlist (if it is not already there 😊) and get a launch discount, or pre-order it now on our website.
Pavel will also do a live dev-stream on Twitch and Youtube, so subscribe to our channel(s) to join him on his quest to become a legend.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Faction Highlights – Pre-Roman Gaul
Thu, February 1, 2024
The Gallic tribes will soon have to choose between freedom and life under Roman subordination.
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar brings two interesting campaign maps. The one that we will introduce today covers the whole of ancient Gaul and all the adjoining regions. It is here where the military and political success of Julius Caesar started.
https://youtu.be/VANQvUdZ19E
The wild lands beyond the Alps have drawn little attention from the expanding Roman Republic until now. The new consul Julius Caesar however wants to make Galia the theater of his military and political triumph.
The Roman Republic stretches along the northern coast of the Mediterranean from Rome, past Massilia to Iberia, but very few Romans have ventured further north. The unforgiving land and fierce barbarian warriors have kept them at bay. Julius Caesar however, is set to force the Gallic tribes to bow to the Roman aquilla.
The powerful tribal confederation between the Pictones and Arverni rules most of interior Gaul. Their leader Vercingetorix seems powerful enough to unite the many Gallic people under one rule for the first time in history.
The Aquitani, a lesser Gallic tribe are wedged between this confederation, the Pyrenees and the sea.
The Veneti in the northwest are seamen and tradesmen, taking advantage of their access to the sea and the British Isles in the north.
The Belgae are settled west of the Rhenus River maintaining friendly relations with the rest of the Gallic people. The real danger lies east of the river where the Germanic Suebi seek any opportunity to expand their territories westward.
The slow incursion of the Romans into Gaul unsettles the many clans living there. It has not yet come to an open war but the great ambitions of Julius Caesar leave little chance of a peaceful solution.
Wishlist the Imperiums: Rise of Caesar DLC
and show your stamina in the brutal war against the fearless Gallic warriors, or gather all the Gallic clans and bury the Roman aquilla at the foot of the Alps forever.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Spotlight - Commanders
Thu, February 8, 2024
Learn the story of courage, determination and self-sacrifice that changed history
The moment we started working on the Rise of Caesar expansion, we started looking for a way to bring the figure of Caesar into the game. We didn't want to just mention him in texts, but we wanted to come up with a mechanic that would help a player understand the importance of key historical figures who changed the course of history.
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/7571c37ef2f7ffc8d549be2fe7ceac8652b7e1cc.png)
It was not only Caesar who was a great hero of his time, his opponents, the Gaul Vercingetorix and the Briton Cassivellaunus were just as cunning, powerful and bold.
Caesar led four legions of battle-hardened troops with strong economic support from Rome. The tribes of Gaul and the British Isles had no trained armies of their own, however what they lacked in organization and equipment they made up for with courage and ferocity.
Vercingetorix managed something that no other Gallic leader had achieved, he united all of the Gallic tribes and led them in the most significant rebellion against the Romans. When their attempt failed, he gave himself up to save the lives of his tribesmen. Similarly, Cassivellaunus took the lead to defend his land and people against the Roman invasion and it was only after the defeat of many allied tribes and the devastation of his territories that he surrendered.
There is no doubt that all three of these military commanders were skilled warriors, courageous and bold. Was it the strategic genius of Caesar or the power of the Roman war machine that tipped the balance?
Pavel, our lead game designer, will explain in detail how we incorporated these three great figures into the game.
The initial plan was to create one unique unit with remarkable abilities that could not be recreated and whose loss would have significant consequences, similar to the Trojan Horse in the Troy DLC
.
When we implemented Caesar as a special unit we realized a number of things:
The unit is a very powerful tool and without a counterpart all opponents are at a big disadvantage.
It would not be fair to ignore the remarkable abilities of other generals in these conflicts, particularly the Gaul Vercingetorix and the Briton Cassivellaunus.
The abilities of these units must be implemented very carefully and the AI must use them with great care.
They should be used in important battles, but their safety must be of top priority, so as to avoid the destructive consequences if they were lost in battle.
To provide these units with a strategic importance there should be at least two different ways they could be used (just one use would make them very static i.e. just moving them a couple of tiles back and forth along the battlefront).
We called these special units "COMMANDERS
" because the name "general" was already taken.
However, commanders are in fact an extension of generals, they share similar abilities but with a number of differences:
Commanders cannot be recruited or hired.
Once a particular commander is dead, he cannot be recreated. He is lost for good.
Commanders can encourage units and influence cities similarly to generals but with greater impact.
Commanders cannot be killed at the player's will.
Commanders boost the units' morale with their presence on the battlefield.
Commanders will not rebel or desert.
When they spend a turn in their capital, it brings more influence to the owner (the commander is lobbying at his court).
The last difference was implemented for two reasons. Firstly, we wanted to give the commanders two way importance, so players have to decide how they want to use them. Secondly, the movement between battlefronts and the capital is in line with history, Caesar usually left his troops in their forts over winter while he went back to his province to deal with political issues.
When your commander is killed, it is a turning point in the game. It will often force you (at least temporarily) to withdraw from the battlefronts to manage the deteriorating relations with your allies.
In summary, once your commander is killed, it considerably lowers your army morale against your enemies, it decreases morale and loyalty in all your cities and it decreases morale of all your units.
After the loss of a commander the total destruction of your armies and enemy breakthroughs on all fronts are more likely. It would be wise to withdraw from your current positions and start preparing a new defensive line deeper in your territory, this will give your units time to get back in shape and to increase morale.
Caesar and Cassivellaunus are present in the scenario from the beginning. Vercingetorix appears later (when certain conditions are met), he was not that significant at the beginning of the Gallic wars and we wanted to be as historically accurate as possible.
I am quite curious about what reception this new mechanic will get from players. For us, it is a small step in the dark in a number of ways.
If you like it, we might build on it and come up with even more interesting unique units in a future expansion.
I personally find it quite an entertaining new aspect within the game that increases the immersion. I hope you will see it the same way.
It is incredible how much these three men influenced the course of events. Cassivellaunus and Vercingetorix tried to preserve the freedom of their people, while Caesar wanted to be the greatest general of Rome and for his personal benefit as well as the political glory of Rome, he was willing to sacrifice a great deal.
The series of Spotlights is now completed. The release is just around the corner so please wishlist the DLC
as the discount will be limited to a few days
after the launch.
I hope you like the new DLC. In many ways it is different from the previous ones, so even those who know Imperiums
well might find something new and fresh here. We will be happy for your feedback. You can support us by spreading the word and writing a Steam review.
As always we will be on the Steam forum and Discord ready to answer your questions, hear your suggestions and of course consider any criticism you might want to share with us.
Yours,
Kube Games team.
-
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar – dev pre-release stream
Sat, February 10, 2024
First dev pre-release stream of Rise of Caesar DLC on Feb 10!
Hello everyone,
The clock is ticking, the new DLC Imperiums: Rise of Caesar is only a week away! To whet your appetite while waiting for the release Pavel will be doing a pre-release stream of the Gallic campaign playing ... yeah, the Romans, on 10th February at 9.30PM CET - 12:30 PDT - 8:30 BST
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images//36085766/a520842422e32d9059158bb7ba70bba479b577d1.png)
Don’t miss this opportunity to get a first glimpse of the maps and more importantly all of the new mechanics that make the game a totally new experience.
So, join Pavel on our Twitch channel twitch.tv/kube_games or alternatively on our Youtube channel, to see if he can make his mark on history and be able to ask all of your important questions 😊
Developer stream - Preview of Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
https://youtu.be/BcrpiqAydVQ
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar preview played by the dev himself! https://steamcommunity.com/games/1183470/announcements/detail/3984063939455880366
See you there!
Yours,
Kube Games team.
Past Event Started Sat, February 10, 2024
-
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar RELEASED!
Thu, 15 February 2024
(https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/36085766/d1a8238cd6f21520f7549d086ab4373b6d41322d.png)
Buy the newly released Imperiums: Rise of Caesar DLC today and claim the discount!
A great day for all the Imperiums fans who can’t wait to make their mark in history – Imperiums: Rise of Caesaris out! Although we kept you waiting longer than we had planned because of other work commitments, we are sure that what we have created here will entice you in for many enjoyable hours of gaming.
Imperiums: Rise of Caesar
(https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/2250440/header.jpg)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2250440/Imperiums_Rise_of_Caesar/
-10% £16.99 £15.29
This will be a true test of your military skills. Thanks to the new mechanics, this will be a totally different gaming experience to what you know from previous Imperiums games, so start your conquests carefully with a clear mind. You will need good stamina to fight your way through the Gallic and British interiors. Planning two steps ahead of your opponents will be also crucial because your opponents are fighting for their very survival and are desperate to survive.
There are two consecutive maps, Gallic wars and the British Isles. You can either transit from the first one to the second by completing a particular victory condition to continue your conquests or you can play them separately.
You enter the game at a time when the consuls in Rome are trying to usurp more power from the Senate and Caesar has been appointed the governor of Transalpine Gaul. To advance his political career he will need victories in Gaul.
Of course, if you are daring enough, you can lead one of the Gallic, Celtic or Germanic tribes and try to stop the invading Romans. Beware though, the Romans are hard to beat and their power-hungry general is ready to pay the highest cost to make Gaul, Germania and Britannia the new northernmost Roman provinces.
https://youtu.be/xYQQ8us8eTQ
The new mechanics make the game more tactical bringing a fresh breeze into the series:
- Two consecutive maps that allow transition from one campaign map to another.
- Time scale reduced to weeks, slows down citizens birth rate and that in turn limits recruitment options. Some building actions (e.g. building roads, bridges, etc.) last longer (think in weeks!) which greatly affects the extension of supply lines (this is THE most important thing to keep in mind).
- Romans can only build 1st and 2nd tier units, new legions can be only obtained through Objectives, decisions made in Politics in Rome, or State Decisions.
- Weather and seasons affect the battle readiness of the units as well as the range of supply lines which has a profound effect on your strategy.
- Commanders (Caesar, Vercingetorix and Cassivellaunus) hike up the morale of your warriors but they can be a liability. Guard your commander at all costs!
- Politics in Rome brings the greater arena of the events of Mediterranean into focus and forces you to take decisions that might affect your current campaign, both in positive and negative ways.
You can now purchase the Rise of Caesar DLC separately or bundled in the Complete edition with the vanilla game Imperiums: Greeks Wars and the two previous DLCs (Age of Alexander and Rome vs Carthage). You can also use the Complete the set bundle. All have a limited launch discount.
You can also purchase this DLC on our website and by doing so directly support the dev team.
Please leave a review on Steam to help get the game more visibility. If you like it, tell your friends and maybe even try the conquest in a multiplayer setting!
We are pretty excited about this DLC so do let us know what you think on our Steam forum
and Discord.
Thank you for your support. Let your endeavors end in great victories 😊
Yours,
Kube Games team.