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[Cruxador]

3. Game was extremely shallow for the price. Even if it wasnt fwith other PDX titles, it was a little high. It's actual worth was around $10-20, which I think is how much it costs on sale now.

This is only kind of true. The game does have a lot of depth. It's just that the depth isn't really tied to gameplay; you don't interact with it in meaningful ways. Which is sort of worst of both worlds, since it impacts the dev time budget (and, thus, cost) but only the most meticulous can derive any benefit from it at all.

4. PDX did not listen to fans. They also did not listen to their play testers and QA department.
5. Their game director was extremely rude to the players. Criticisms were banned from their forums, even ones made with good intentions.

This is a consistent case, though, it's not specific to Imperator. It's also kind of understandable. It's true that players are not designers, and only one in a dozen, even being generous, has ideas that are actually good. However, that doesn't change the fact that it most players think something is wrong, then something is wrong.

They think they can keep getting away with this. All I know is that it really made me reconsider ever buying anything from PDX, even their non strategy titles. I would expect to wait a minimum of a year of anything they publish to see if its well made.

Paradox as a publisher isn't that heavy-handed, apparently. It's probably best to judge games according to the developer, not the publisher, in most cases. But "don't buy until it's been out for a while" is a good general policy for games anyway, and I would hardly fault anyone for revoking an exception to that policy after Imperator – or after Stellaris, or HoI4, or even EU4 for that matter, though these days most people forget how flawed that one was on launch. And honestly, Paradox has never been known for good launches.

[nautilu]

4. PDX did not listen to fans. They also did not listen to their play testers and QA department.
5. Their game director was extremely rude to the players. Criticisms were banned from their forums, even ones made with good intentions.

This is a consistent case, though, it's not specific to Imperator. It's also kind of understandable. It's true that players are not designers, and only one in a dozen, even being generous, has ideas that are actually good. However, that doesn't change the fact that it most players think something is wrong, then something is wrong.

They really shot themselves in the foot with this. I worked in this field and negative feedback is way better than no feedback at all. There still is a monetary value to negative interactions and its a net positive to the company. It gives them an overview of what is wrong without having to spend real $$$ on researchers to find out for them. Yeah gamers arent all full of good ideas, many didnt even agree on what the game should of been, but its better to have one gem among a sea of coal than nothing at all.
Right now their forums are dead, and the new head developer is practically begging for people to post again.

And as for the launcher being spyware... these changes all did suspiciously happen when Tencent purchased large amount of stock in the company...

[scriver]

Wait, Tencent is a stockholder now? And here I was disliking hem going public on principle alone...

[nautilu]

Yeah, it seems to be the pattern with Tencent. They buy a stake in a gaming company, then all of a sudden there is a new "user agreement" and the launcher starts acting weird.
Tencent pays a small price to access all of a companies customers, and they get useful data to target your email, social media, etc for their crappy phone games.
Its like free antivirus programs. They work great then are quietly bought by another company and then start doing the opposite of antivirus protection.

[LoSboccacc]

Yeah, it seems to be the pattern with Tencent. They buy a stake in a gaming company, then all of a sudden there is a new "user agreement" and the launcher starts acting weird.

....and a mobile first version of the main properties.

[ZeroGravitas]

Wait, Tencent is a stockholder now? And here I was disliking hem going public on principle alone...

they bought 5% of paradox like 4 years ago

[PTTG??]

For all that people are complaining about Imperator, it's still doing ten times better than... uh... Artifact.

[Cruxador]

For all that people are complaining about Imperator, it's still doing ten times better than... uh... Artifact.

Legitimately no idea what you're talking about.

[nautilu]

Wait, Tencent is a stockholder now? And here I was disliking hem going public on principle alone...

they bought 5% of paradox like 4 years ago

And they opened up a mobile game development studio the year after that. They also got a new CEO, Ms. Ebba.

[EuchreJack]

For all that people are complaining about Imperator, it's still doing ten times better than... uh... Artifact.

Legitimately no idea what you're talking about.

If my Google Fu is good, different Paradox.  Unless they diversified into music, I dunno.

Wait, Tencent is a stockholder now? And here I was disliking hem going public on principle alone...

they bought 5% of paradox like 4 years ago

And they opened up a mobile game development studio the year after that. They also got a new CEO, Ms. Ebba.

I have no idea of what I'm talking about, but a 5% interest doesn't give someone that much power.  They get to say their ideas, but its hardly a controlling interest.  Now, if they said "hey, if you could do this for me, I could buy 5% more or loan you money", now that would give quite a power boost, but non-stockholders could make the same deals.

Can't a company like issue 45% of its shares and then just say "thanks for the money folks" and continue doing whatever they want?  Now, heaven help them if they need more capital, but at least in the short term they're fine.

...
Actually, my real reason for posting was to ask "When are we getting Forgotten Kingdoms: The Interregnum"?

If Paradox wants to make a quick buck, they should just release the game that fills the gap between Imperator: Rome and Crusader Kings 2/3.  Everyone wants to play the entirety of human existence post-Alexander.

Then they can work on "Atlantis Universalis", "Rise of the Indus", "Pharaohs Dream", and finally "Levant's Descent".

[nautilu]

I have no idea of what I'm talking about, but a 5% interest doesn't give someone that much power.  They get to say their ideas, but its hardly a controlling interest.  Now, if they said "hey, if you could do this for me, I could buy 5% more or loan you money", now that would give quite a power boost, but non-stockholders could make the same deals.

Can't a company like issue 45% of its shares and then just say "thanks for the money folks" and continue doing whatever they want?  Now, heaven help them if they need more capital, but at least in the short term they're fine.

...
Actually, my real reason for posting was to ask "When are we getting Forgotten Kingdoms: The Interregnum"?

If Paradox wants to make a quick buck, they should just release the game that fills the gap between Imperator: Rome and Crusader Kings 2/3.  Everyone wants to play the entirety of human existence post-Alexander.

Normally 5% doesnt give any power but its noted that PDX SPECIFICALLY earmarked 5% shares for Tencent during the initial public sale. Thats not normal unless there was some other backroom deal done, like PDX gives up 5% and some power in order to get promoted by Tencent in China.
There is a lot of evidence that Tencent is government run or at least all western games wanting access to the Chinese market must go through them first. That gives a lot of power.

And "Forgotten Kingdoms: The Interregnum" would be an amazing game. Might be too complex tho since there would be tribal, pre feudal and civilized urban republican societies all mashing together in the same time frame.

[Aoi]

I haven't really been keeping an eye on this (or, at all...), but: You can have a disparity in ownership interest and voting rights. The most prominent example that's come up recently is probably Facebook's Class A vs Class B shares; I don't recall which is which off-hand, but one of them is the one that's generally sold on the market and carries a tenth of the voting rights as the other. (And the other... is mostly held by Zuckerberg.) Swedish law does appear to still support multi-class shares from a company, it doesn't look like this is the case here, making some kind of alternative agreement more likely. Besides, there's a lot of influence that can be exerted without official voting power.

[Cruxador]

Actually, my real reason for posting was to ask "When are we getting Forgotten Kingdoms: The Interregnum"?

If Paradox wants to make a quick buck, they should just release the game that fills the gap between Imperator: Rome and Crusader Kings 2/3.  Everyone wants to play the entirety of human existence post-Alexander.

Then they can work on "Atlantis Universalis", "Rise of the Indus", "Pharaohs Dream", and finally "Levant's Descent".

If we're pitching our wishes for the game, I would love a Paradox game set in China from Spring and Autumn until the Yuan invasion. It would work fine as just EU4 style province development and armies but with generals and court characters at Imperator's level of depth or a bit less (doesn't need to go full CK2) but with those generals tied to provinces and more focus on the difference between central and local power. Because of how Chinese history is, it could cover a longer time period pretty successfully.

[EuchreJack]

Gameplay question: Can anyone explain the differences between the three overall government types (tribal, authoritarian, republican)?
I've only played mostly tribal so far, and read a bit about the other government types not necessarily being an upgrade as far as amassing the most troops and winning wars.  I would hope it's one of those "well, the tribals are pretty good initially, but the others get better over time", but I'm not really sure.
I do gather that its slightly easier to tech up as the other two types, just because the citizens prefer living in them.

EDIT: Well, with nobody seeming able to respond here or elsewhere, I'll mention what I know.
Tribal: Troops seem to be easy to come by and plentiful, political authority also, gold and research are somewhat lacking.
Republican: Lots of gold and research, not as many troops, the senate can block your actions.
Authoritarian: Very stable (if legitimate), research plentiful, gold not as bad as tribal yet not as good as republican, average manpower between the three maybe?

Back to the criticism of how the game is being handled, check out the wikipedia entry.  Its a glowing endorsement for the game.  Then check out its talk page and history, and see how any attempts to say "well, the steam playerbase seems to disagree with all those glowing reviews" have been ruthlessly and relentlessly squashed.

[Trolldefender99]

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-the-bronze-age-v0-4-3b-the-egypt-update.1199863/

Best mod for imperator by far, and its only 0.4 and not even 1.0 release version. Its one of the best paradox mods I've played, especially one in early stages. It looks really amazing (the map looks great in the game) and a lot of cool features and mechanics. My favorite one is in Egypt (newly added), you can designate a province as a place to build a pyramid, and it kinda reminds me of playing the old Pharaoh game where you have a very long term, extensive project that requires a lot of resources, time, manpower and money. You can choose a smaller project too for a tomb, but still pretty extensive.

Hope the mod gets finished, but if you got tired/bored of normal Imperator, should try the mod out and see how you like it.