To all SSC Station occupants
Thank you for the donations over the past year (2024), it is much appreciated. I am still trying to figure out how to migrate the forums to another community software (probably phpbb) but in the meantime I have updated the forum software to the latest version. SSC has been around a while so their is some very long time members here still using the site, thanks for making SSC home and sorry I haven't been as vocal as I should be in the forums I will try to improve my posting frequency.
Thank you again to all of the members that do take the time to donate a little, it helps keep this station functioning on the outer reaches of space.
-D1-
Greetings SpaceSimCentral netizens!
My name is Steve Hawkins, and I am a lifelong player of most games 4X, as well as sim games, strategy games, civ games, alien extermination games, board games, war games, solitaire games, and games that require you to think in space for just about any type and occasion. I am currently working on my most ambitious project yet, Imperia - the first 5X 4x!!
tl;dwtr
Check out my cool new free project 4X game at imperiagame.wordpress.com!
PREMISE:
Basically, in Imperia, you are a new 18-year old emperor who is trying to jump-start the new Human Empire, which was relocated from Earth to a different quadrant of the galaxy almost 1000 years ago. The game plays at the surface like a standard 4X, but your power as an emperor is based in large part how much your people support you and how loyal your cabinet, viceroys, and governors are to your cause.
In addition, you were born with a strange ability: to read the minds and thoughts of others. It is not always perfect, but when it works, it is always accurate. As a leader, this ability is very valuable to determine who you can trust. Your goal, if not in action, is simple: to restore the Empire, to reclaim your standing as Emperor of the known quadrant, and to revive the previously proscribed Lazarus Project, the rumored path to immortal rule.
That is, if you're not killed by your people first... in Imperia, the 5th X is... eXist.
CONCEPTS:
In Imperia, you do not have unlimited power. Unlike virtually every other 4X game out there, you can not do anything at anytime. You have a small pool of Admin (ADM) points that you spend to do basically anything, from issuing edicts to communicating with characters in the game to meeting with your cabinets to undertaking personal actions. As you age, your pool will gradually increase, reflecting your increased familiarity with how to 'make things work' as an Emperor.
Edicts are another major difference from other 4X games. In Imperia, you might simply change a planet's name by clicking the button, typing in the name, and that's that. In reality, changing an entire planet's name would have serious repercussions! So what you might have used to simply 'do' in other games now require Edicts. Edicts are laws that you pass to do things like reorganize sectors, change a system or sector capital, build or upgrade starbases, change what a planet produces, etc. Each planet has a certain amount of ADM to use to actually enact the Edict - this will make large projects on small colonies impossible to do unless there is support from its system and sector capital, and perhaps even the Imperial capital! Admin represents all the planning, infrastructure, transport, ships, manpower, etc. to do planet-shaping things, and abstracts nicely the concept while eliminating micromanagement. Also, ADM is tied up until an Edict actually goes into effect/is completed - thus, an Edict that is dragging along and taking much longer than you thought will tie up your government unless you cancel it or speed it along - and both decisions have consequences!
While your word as Emperor is law, there is no way to force how long an Edict actually takes to plan, execute, and complete. And this is where the other major system of Imperia comes in - the character system.
Characters populate Imperia (much like Crusader Kings games) - they have their own stats, age, wealth, traits, and ambitions, like you or me. They can be manipulated to do what you want - perhaps, and you will often find yourself bribing or sweet talking a system governor who is holding up an important economic stimulus in their system, or perhaps calming down a sector governor who you just took away an entire system from to give to a closer sector, or promoting a loyal viceroy all the way to a sector governor who will be absolutely loyal to you - the character system in Imperia is a powerful and immersive aspect of managing your empire. Character stats are hidden from you until you reach a certain intel level (increased from interacting with them, or placing informers to gather information), and even then the number is a wide range until your intel increases sufficiently. This is a problem when a character's loyalty is reported as 88 (out of 100) but it it actually a 41! The rule of thumb: Watch what characters actually do, not what they say. They also gain traits that affect their decisions and relationships with you as they age. They can die and retire, or be 'retired' by you - either by forcing them out of office or by more 'direct' measures. Don't get caught!
You yourself have a starring role as well through Influence. As you make choices through your rule, you will start to gain different types of Influence. Nationalist Influence is the 'good' Influence, which calls to action for your Empire and the pride of humanity. Tyrannical Influence is the 'evil' Influence, which is used to threaten and intimidate characters into doing your will - but using it will have other repercussions. In addition, craven characters will gravitate to emperors who stray into Tyrannical decisions, and vice versa - you may have to make some tough choices about removing (or trying to!) governors who can't stand your alignment!
The game is about less micro and more about making the large-scale decisions that shape an Empire. You will not be building 10 Science Labs to accelerate research; instead you will designate a planet as a Science Conclave and try to install a viceroy that is aligned to the need for research, allowing that planet to grow organically - with a few nudges along the way. You will not be building transports and endlessly clicking materials to go from planet to planet - instead, you will set up trade hubs that serve as collection centers and build starbases of appropriate sizes to move materials and food along from your Imperial capital to sector capitals to system capitals to normal colonies.
From an 'explore' standpoint, no longer do you have to build and design scout ships, set a destination, and micromanage exploration and colonization fleet. Would a real emperor do that? Edicts cover just about everything you would want to do as an Emperor on a exploration level, from surveying new planets and unexplored systems to creating outposts to creating colonies. You just create an Edict on an unexplored planet or system and your people will do the rest (eventually).
As mentioned earlier, planets are not micromanaged. They are very complex entities whose actions are governed in part by their population, the stats of the planet itself, its viceroy, and most importantly its primary designation. All planets have at least one primary designation - examples would be a farming world, a manufacturing center, a heavy military world, a scientific conclave, a prison planet, etc. Designations basically shape how a planet will evolve. Depending on the size of the planet, up to 2 additional 'secondary' designations can also be assigned to more round out a planet's development.
The population of your Empire will ultimately decide whether you live long and prosper (ha) or die at the business end of a pulser. Populations have their own unrest, age, type, job class, popular support, and needs. Each 5000 people are considered one 'pop' (similar to the Victoria system, but much more granular) and they can change jobs, age, die, have kids, migrate to other planets, or even leave your Empire altogether! They can also starve, grow angry, and revolt. In addition, if they are happy with the Empire (and are paid enough) they can be hired as informers on your planet to watch your viceroy and governors stationed on a planet to get to better know their stats... and potentially provide blackmail material!
All of what I have talked about is already in the game. As of now, I have spent about 7 months on it here and there and the game is functional, generally free of errors or bugs (the nasty kind, not always the logic kind) and I am about to release it as a free hobby project on Sourceforge. Right now the game is at version .311a so you can see there is a long way to go. Soon, science, diplomacy, warships, garrisons, events, and plots will be added, as well as eventually other empires - and a alien threat!
Here are some screenshots (WIP)
If you are interested in playing Imperia, or want to know more, I have a developer blog that has tons of screenshots and media at imperiagame.wordpress.com - here you will find a developer timeline, and the download link for the free alpha! You can also check out a podcast at Space Game Junkie here: http://www.twitch.tv/spacegamejunkie/b/548267251 !
Again, thanks for your time in reading this and your interest!
-Steve
Wow. Thanks Steve for posting - this looks amazingly ambitious and the progress so far is brilliant! I'd download right away and try it out, but I've only just bought Distant Worlds and trying to learn both at once would melt my brain 😀
Will keep an eye on Imperia though. Oh, and welcome to SSC 😀
auryx
You look good through a crosshair.
Wow. Thanks Steve for posting - this looks amazingly ambitious and the progress so far is brilliant! I'd download right away and try it out, but I've only just bought Distant Worlds and trying to learn both at once would melt my brain 😀
Will keep an eye on Imperia though. Oh, and welcome to SSC 😀
auryx
Auryx,
Thanks for the kind welcome!
As a proud owner of Distant Worlds, I completely understand! The game will be waiting when you get to it.. in fact, version .320 is just about ready to release! There will always be something cool coming down the line, so we'll be here when you are!
-Steve
Just a heads-up that .230 is up for download. Go to imperia.wordpress.com for more details.
Here's the change log - it's a huge update with a lot of new functionality:
Imperia V.320a Change Log/Readme
7.31.14
Notes
* Please uninstall any previous version of Imperia before installing a new version. I have not yet added patch ability. The good news is that the install is relatively quick.
* I am updating the Sourceforge Imperia wiki periodically and this will be the best document for questions and how to play Imperia. Please refer back to it frequently.
Fixes
* Fixed word-wrap issues with alerts and psystreams
* Fixed issue with outposts that are on too small TDL worlds – they would not add any industry. While this is technically working (what are you doing putting an outpost on such a tiny world?) it is assumed that the outpost is specially designed to make maximum use of the planet’s space
* Fixed clock – bug with displaying AM when it was 12:00 PM
* Fixed crash bug with trade system when a very specific case occurred
* Fixed issue with abandoning planets generating a NaN issue when eligible population dropped below 0 – i.e. only children and retired people were left
* Fixed mouseover issue with alert bar picking up planets beneath it occasionally
* Fixed issue with stockpiling where characters who refused to start sending goods again would still receive stockpiles from hubs farther downstream – this is not intended since they do not control that flow!
* Fixed crash error with character portrait generation
* Fixed some popup issues where mouse could still be used on screens
* Fixed crash issue with assigning new system Edict if no sector capital was found nearby
* Fixed some further trade issues and an issue with the trade combine logic
* Fixed the alert system – sometimes it would show duplicate messages
* Fixed population/unrest graphs showing the bars wrong
Changes/Additions
* Added Riot mechanic:
* Planets that have Pops with an unrest level of 50 or higher (for now) have a chance for that Pop to riot.
* Each type of Pop is checked individually; scientists will have far less of a likelihood to revolt than unemployed Pops.
* If a Pop riots, they become unemployed and a second check is made to see if they destroy a level of their industry; for example, if a former Manufacturing pop riots, a check is made to see if they destroy one level of Manufacturing.
* If a riot is in progress, a check is made to see if they kill a leader on the planet, affected by the size of the riot and the power and popular support of that leader.
* Pops that are already rioting have a small bonus to continue to simulate the ‘mob’ mentality of riots. You must act quickly when you detect a riot!
* As you might imagine, riots lower popular support.
* Several changes to UI:
* Planet screen shows RIOTING population if applicable
* System screen will show RIOTING as an alert status
* A critical alert will be generated, and a second one if a leader is killed
* The letter (R) will be next to the planet name on the Intel screen
* Major upgrade to Alert system:
* Added ‘click to alert’ functionality – now clicking on an alert will take you directly to that planet
* Right clicking on an alert will move the quadrant screen to the system affected
* Colors have all been changed to reflect seriousness of alert
* Filters have been added to all alert types – icons showing number of alerts for that alert type have been added. You may toggle the alert types at any time to show all, some, or no alerts at all!
* Added message box system. This will alert the user when certain events happen that require additional confirmation. Currently, the alerts are:
* Save/load game
* Deleting an Edict
* Quitting the game
* Load/save failed, including mismatched game versions
* Save success verification
* Added intel information on orbitals:
* Color code – green is stockpiling, red is holding goods, orange is embargoed, white is normal operations
* Shows level of starbase/logistical station/exploration station
* If trade hub, shows sys/sec/imp level of hub
* Added color code on Intel screen for planet names – yellow – planet is at 75% total development level capacity, orange – planet is at 90% of capacity, red – planet is at 100% and may not expand without finding new land, removing a sector level, or increasing the bio rating
* Added possibility that very smart viceroys will see that the planet is getting near capacity and on their own initiative reclaim additional land on the planet for development purposes. An alert will also be generated. This function is only the beginning of the emergent character AI (eCAI)
* Added ‘Planning’ trait to viceroys which in conjunction with other traits will make that viceroy more likely to intelligently develop their planet
* Changed traits to display max 3 columns, but with full words. Tooltips are still planned to explain what the traits mean.
* Updated character screen in preparation for character portraits, character wishes, added a row for more actions, and added the Nationalist/Tyrannical psy indicator.
* Changed Character Power to always show the estimated level at least, and color-codes the value (less powerful = green; more powerful = red)
* Changed how Power is calculated for most characters – now their Power directly relates to their holdings, title, and strength of those holdings in preparation for emergent character AI (eCAI)
* Added PoSup calculation for characters in preparation for emergent character AI (eCAI)
* Added beginnings of character portrait system, with aging, sex, and rank changes set as the character moves through their lifetime
* Changed emperor name to generate a random name with appropriate suffix (you don’t have to play as me anymore! 🙂 )
* Changed ‘Stockpiling Goods’ action to include having the closest trade hub send excess goods every turn in addition to placing a hold on exports – if they can.
* Changed UI to consolidate trades if they are coming from and going to the same place.
* Added additional character portraits – there are now 16 different character portraits
* Added additional planets – now there should be more variety in the planet looks. This is ongoing
* Upgraded range circle graphics and sector lines
* Added popular support and unrest reactions to very unpopular viceroys, and less so for system and very less so for sector governors
* Tied in planetary popular support to the unrest level if it is above 30 or so – people do not like living in unstable planets!
* Added a lot of modifiers to actions based on character’s continuum ratings – basically, the farther apart you are from the character on the scale, the less likely the action is to be done unless it ties in with their beliefs
* Added field to show % of actual deliverables from each trade – this field is now affected by receiving starbase size or logistical station size, with a starbase giving a much lower penalty – level 5 starbases that receive goods incur no penalty beyond the distance modifier. There is also a corruption loss for planets with corrupt viceroys or very evil ones
Balance
* Adjusted the granularity of estimated ratings for characters – they will generally be more accurate now, especially at lower levels (this will also help with the wildly oscillating times for Edict completion prediction)
* Recalibrated emperor titles to be more gradual as your continuum changes
* Changed and lowered ADM cost of all development-based edicts (edicts that depend on the TDL of the planet). This results in lowered cost of abandoning planets significantly
* Increased the starting populations of generated worlds – note: this will slightly increase new game generation time. This is normal
* Increased the starting material stockpiles of generated worlds
* Increased the amount of workers per level of sector that can work in line with the larger starting populations – this also lowered the initial unrest and unemployment rates, causing less ‘hellhole’ planets
* Gave Logistical Stations the ability to send goods as well as receive, but they can not be trade hubs – this is to make it easier to set up trade networks without exorbitant cost to smaller systems
* Outposts now have a Lev I logistical base instead of a full starbase
* Recalibrated PoSup calculations for characters to rise and fall more slowly, especially towards the high and low end (moves towards the Bell curve mean)
Unresolved Issues
* When loading a game, sometimes the alerts are in the wrong category. This only happens for the current turn and is more annoying than anything. Investigating.
Downloaded and already played 2 hours. Different from any other 4x game, not easy to play, I still have to learn ho to manage empire. I'll follow with interest any further development of the game, it will be amazing adding some other empires to make war and larger galaxy.
Downloaded and already played 2 hours. Different from any other 4x game, not easy to play, I still have to learn ho to manage empire. I'll follow with interest any further development of the game, it will be amazing adding some other empires to make war and larger galaxy.
Well, that's all coming soon. I'm excited too, and I'm glad you played! There is a new wiki that I am working on that should help with some questions ( http://imperia5x.wikidot.com/start ) Also, I just released .400! Get it at the link above; tons of great changes, such as:
Imperia V.400a Change Log/Readme
9.10.14
Notes
* Please uninstall any previous version of Imperia before installing a new version. I have not yet added patch ability. The good news is that the install is relatively quick.
* I am updating the WikiDot Imperia wiki periodically and this will be the best document for questions and how to play Imperia. Please refer back to it frequently.
Fixes
* Fixed another issue with trade – now all trade hubs should send food and materials both upstream and downstream
* Fixed recurring/duplicate event notifications
* Fixed issue where if 2 Edicts were in a queue and one was deleted, it would cause an out of index error, crashing the game
* Fixed issue where a newly colonized planet would not actually know it was attached to the Empire, causing issues
* Fixed issue where you could create an outpost on a planet that was being colonized
* Fixed Edict calculation issue that did not take distance between the sector capital and the planet into account if sector ADM was being used
* Fixed issue where assigning a new colony a designation would not properly assign the sectors
* Fixed issue where colonization range was double what was shown on the map
* Fixed inconsistency between empire edict time estimate on Edict Creation screen and actual time remaining
* Fixed issue where removing a governor or viceroy would not calculate the correct power for a turn, causing huge issues with unrest that turn (basically a divide by 0 error)
* Fixed issue where characters would have very low PoSups upon generation
* Fixed some duplicate/advance traits for characters. For example, characters that are cruel are no longer craven as well, since cruel is more harsh than craven. This is a work in progress.
Changes/Additions
* Changed Edict material calculation. Now, if a planet has materials, but no ADM, those materials will still be used – there is no need for the ADM-lending planet to donate additional materials. This solved the issue of wasting materials on a planet that already had plenty, just no ADM to do anything with them. Note that planets with no materials will still be unable to use their ADM to obtain them.
* Added the remainder of the planet event statuses on the system screen
* Updated more graphics, also centered and optimized more text strings
* Recategorized alerts to be more helpful. For example, a riot that causes damage is a critical alert, but a small riot that does no harm is now considered serious (orange). This should help to make alerts more useful.
* Added Luxury mineral effects on the service sector. Now a luxury mineral rating above 50 will increase the profit of this sector, while a rating below 50 will lower it.
* Added Luxury mineral effects to unrest – more effective luxury minerals combined with the size of the service sector will lower unrest
* Added Effective Luxury Mineral rating – this is the second # on the right of the slash. Shows mineral rating that is effective after trades and propagation is taken into account
* Added Unrest modifiers to the Demographics tab. This will show you the major factors in a planet’s average unrest and change.
* Added ability to designate new colonies’ Primary Designations during creation
* Added note that no Edicts may be enacted on a planet that is being colonized
* Completely rewrote how Pops emigrate and choose planets – now instead of moving to the first planet they find that meets their criteria, they now have a ranked list that they can reach with some random thrown in, and then choose from that list with the most desirable planets weighted most heavily. This will create population clusters and allows more realistic movement, where system events will effect entire sectors without a simple ‘pop bouncing’ between 2 nearby planets
* Exploration stations can now be built at any distance. This will encourage more exploration, but the time and resources needed to deploy a faraway station will be higher
* Added ADL to main planet screen. Now always visible along with class, Bio rating, and scan level
* Adjusted numerous UI displays to correspond to these changes
* Added continuum checks to each character – now actions and traits will adjust the character’s continuum rating each month
* Added secondary designation slots on UI in preparation for secondary designations
* Added expanded information about trade network on system screen – now all planets will show their status vis a vis the trade network
* Added check upstream and downstream to see if luxury minerals propagate through a trade network in a sector. This means that planets which are connected to the trade network in a given sector will send a portion of their luxury mineral value if that adjusted value is still superior to planets that are upstream or downstream; the portion will be relative to how far away they are from a hub
* Added arrow showing loss in economic sector due to riots
* Added bio rating to affect manufacturing profit – anything below 50 will seriously affect profitability
* Added retirement subsidy – now retired population will receive a subsidy somewhat lower, but roughly equal to the unemployment subsidy for that planet (depending on the ADL of the planet). You will be able to reduce or eliminate these at the risk of unrest and lowered posup if you are in a financial bind
* Added character continuum rating to affect their posup – however, characters that are powerful and have a high Tyrannical rating will see their posup increase due to fear
* Completely rewrote how retail and service profits are generated. Before, it used a rather complex but not-very-realistic formula. Now, 4 different values are calculated as part of the overall calculation:
* Profit per item – looks at wages, production sector efficiency, and luxury mineral quality
* Service budget – how much money people on the planet have to spend on retail items
* Amount of sales items – determined both by trade and by production capacity. Factors in food and manufactured goods, with a bonus for inherent retail sector capacity (small stores that offer services for money, but not necessarily goods)
* Service Efficiency – are there enough service workers in the sector to effectively sell all the goods for sale?
From those 4 values, it next determines the maximum amount of the theoretical budget that people will use, based on popular support, unrest, and unemployment. Generally, the better people are feeling about the planet’s situation, the more of their maximum budget they will spend in a given month. What this means in practice is that a planet can have the highest quality goods in the world, but if there are not enough people to either buy them or sell them, your retail sector will suffer. Conversely, you can have all the demand in the world for goods but if your planet can not produce them or ship them in, your stores will be empty. However, if you have both quality goods and the people to buy them, you can make huge profits.
* Added new submode to the Economic tab: Government Spending. This will break down all the subsidies and Edicts that a planetary government is spending its money on so that you can (finally) see where all a planet’s money is going. Details on each category will appear on the right-hand side when you mouse over a particular category.
* Added new Intel screen submode – Character Intel. Here you can see a list of all the characters in your empire, and communicate directly with them by clicking on their info. Also added buttons to toggle between Planet Intel and Character Intel.
* Added additional popular support factor – if a planet is using the sector subsidy to stay afloat, your people won’t like that much
* Added governor information on SID to assist with character interactions
* Changed the scale of money – now million is billion, billion is trillion, etc. to match the scale of an interstellar empire. Note that all figures are in thousands, so 1,000,000 is actually a billion (1,000,000,000). This is to keep the memory and space requirement down.
* Added new music, including new opening theme, and starting to add game sound effects
Balance
* Changed the riot system to have a minimum threshold planet-wide so that a planet cannot have riots if the overall planet unrest level is below 30. This prevents strange mini-riots on an otherwise very peaceful planet
* Lowered PoSup effects, both positive and negative, across the board. This will make for a more flowing game.
* No Starbase will make emigrating from a planet much more difficult, with larger Starbases making planets more of an immigration target.
* Exploration stations have been tweaked upward to compensate for their removal of range limitations
* Adjusted the wage adjustment calculations to take into effect viceroy traits and designations
* Adjusted the emigration change slightly upward to tie in with rewritten emigration routine
* Increased the overall amount of goods that make it to the destination, somewhat nerfed the distance modifier
* Adjusted the retail sector calculation to take into effect luxury minerals much more heavily
* Adjusted the profitability of the manufacturing sector downward
* Increased sector population per level of sector – increasing the base amount of pops who can be employed per level.
* Changed the effect of industrial taxes on whether a given sector expands or contracts – higher taxes will be much more likely to decrease the sector level, reflecting ‘choking off’ profitability and reinvestment
* Increased substantially amount of money that planets can potentially have at game start, making it less likely they start off ‘in the hole’ and giving you time to make changes, since there is now a penalty to your poSup for planets going broke
Unresolved Issues
* When loading a game, sometimes the alerts are in the wrong category. This only happens for the current turn and is more annoying than anything. Investigating.
* If you use the mousewheel to scroll up and down intel lists, it also effects the zoom level of the quadrant map. I can fix this, but it will require a rewrite of the zoom function and is not a huge priority at this time.
-Steve
Hey everyone!
I've posted a LP on YouTube showing off some gameplay for the .410b build that is scheduled to be released later this week. Check it out! It shows about 15 months (turns) of gameplay, and shows off many of the new features and UI. I will probably also post a short new gallery with the new look of the game - it's a HUGE upgrade over the initial post pics.
Steve
What a good video explaining the game play of Imperia, I hope I can sit down with this soon because this looks like a deep game and I hope more people check this out. Strange that you have had 2k+ views and not many responses I wonder it the game is too daunting for some 🙂
I love the realistic style of your ship! This is the first time I have seen "nasa" style spaceships and laser turrets with lenses rather than fully rings for the first time. The gameplay sounds really attractive. Good job! I am really expecting future developments!
Sounds like a great game 🙂
Looking forward to its evolution!
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