Last time on this blog, I discussed how I don’t like Republics in Imperator: Rome feeling the same as monarchies.  Once you have Senate Support, while there are a handful of unique events related to running the Republic, there’s nothing to sink your teeth into.  EU4 and CK2 both have very unique republics with unique gameplay loops, and Imperator Rome deserves the same.  It will never get the same because it’s been abandoned by players and Paradox alike, but hopefully Imperator’s death will make Paradox think twice before trying to stuff mana into a game that doesn’t need it.

But before we discuss what I do want from Republics, I’d like to tackle another bugbear I have of the game, and that is that peacetime is boring and governor policies aren’t fun.  

Imperator desperately needs something interesting to do during peacetime.  Implementing policies should be that thing, but it isn’t.  As it stands now: every province you own in the game is assigned a governor, and those governors set policies that influence the province.  These governor policies can do a lot of things, they can convert their pops to your One True Faith, they can help build up defenses to increase your manpower, they can encourage trade to increase your wealth.  But you don’t have control over what policies your governors set.  If Imperator is to be a series of interesting choices (in the words of Sid Meiers), then we should start with these policies.

The only way currently to set what policies you want for your provinces is to spend Political Influence (PI), which is a rare currency in this game that is far better spent on other things.  PI is needed for everything from changing laws, to keeping yourself stable, to fabricating claims so you can go to war with your neighbors.  Everything costs PI, and governor actions are at the bottom of the list of what I want to spend PI on.

To give you an example of the value of PI, that “encourage trade” governor policy provides a roughly 10% increase to the provinces taxes.  But it costs about 10 PI to enact.  Now, even a small nation in Imperator can easily have 10 provinces, so increasing just 1 province’s tax by 10% is really just a 1% benefit to your overall nation.  Meanwhile, for 50 PI you can found a city, which not only massively increases tax but also increases manpower, research, and conversion speed through its buildings.

So you can either spend 50 PI to enact 5 “encourage trade” policies, providing a modest 5% boost to income, or you can spend it to found a city and get way more benefits.  But it gets worse, occasionally governors become corrupt or die, and so you have to replace them.  The new governor will undo all your policies, and you have to spend that 50 PI again just to get that same 5% bonus.  A 5% bonus that is still less than what you can get from just founding a city. 

And remember, that 50 PI is also needed to increase your nation’s stability, pass important laws, or fabricate claims on a neighbor.  There’s just never a time when I feel I can waste my PI changing governor actions, so I just ignore the governors entirely.  There’s an entire game mechanic in this game that is completely wasted because it costs precious mana.

I think changing governor policies shouldn’t cost PI.  It should be completely free like national focuses (or foci) in Victoria 2.  If changing policies were free, I could actually see myself constantly going around to my provinces and spending time changing what they’re doing.   Imperator Rome has the most boring peace-time of any Paradox game, and letting me play around with the provinces would at least give me something to do.  

After a big war I could change all the policies to manpower producing ones so I can replenish my armies. This is the same way that Victoria 2 lets me use national foci to replenish my soldiers.  If I need to build a huge monument for my own megalomania, I can tax my provinces to hell and back, making them angry at me.  And once I build the thing, I can switch to giving them more autonomy so they’ll like me again.

If you limited how many governor policies I had, it would also enforce hard and perhaps interesting choices on my playstyle.  Let’s say you limited me to just 2 provinces having governor policies in the entire nation (2 is the same as the starting number of national foci in Victoria 2).  In that case, the policies need to be very powerful in order to make using them worthwhile.  As a start, let’s make policies 5x more powerful than they are now.

If that were the case, then as I expanded I’d have to make interesting choices about where to use my policies.  I can encourage trade in my heartlands, or I can convert pops in my recent conquests to the One True Faith.  Encouraging trade gets me money, but converting pops makes them less likely to rebel, where do I need to put my focus?  Or maybe I just had a big war and need to replenish my manpower, well if I use both policies for manpower, then I’m not getting more money or converting pops.  

I could also see myself using some of the rarer policies in this case. There’s a policy called “social mobility,” which increases the rate at which pops promote and demote.  Usually this is kind of pointless, and pops quickly reach an equilibrium state without needing this policy, and once they reach equilibrium they can promote/demote no further.  But when you’ve just founded a city, it can be useful to quickly turn the tribesmen who live there into nobles and citizens.  I could see myself using this policy in that case for a quick turnaround.

Governor policies should be something that helps keep me interested between wars, the same way national foci help keep me interested in Victoria.  Making them powerful, free, but rare would mean I’d be constantly switching things around as the game progressed.  But as they stand now, they’re weak, expensive, and everywhere so I usually just ignore them.  They aren’t worth the mana and they aren’t worth my time.