Anniversary Patch 2.0.4 Augustus

Avē!

My name is Erik Jakobsson, but most of you know me as Katten. I work as a Community Manager for Hearts of Iron IV & Millennia, and with great joy, I can finally tell you that it's here—Patch 2.0.4 Augustus is now available for everyone on Steam, GOG, Microsoft Store, and GeForce Now!
Watch on YouTube
This patch contains 158 bug fixes, improved performance, 25 new modding tools, as well as the ability to earn achievements while playing mods. Now, before we jump into the patch notes, I want to share how this patch came to be!

A look back

Last year, Niels Uiterwijk, currently the Technical Director at Studio Green and the former tech lead for Imperator, decided to begin work on a small maintenance patch for the game. This patch aimed to address issues encountered by modders and regular players. It entered Open Beta exactly one year ago, on April 25th, 2023. However, it remained dormant and was not released to the live branch due to the requirement of needing to release simultaneously on all platforms. This posed a technical resource demand, and simply put, there wasn't enough time available, as Niels was working on this project in his spare time.

The Imperator Day

As we entered 2024, we began hearing whispers of creators coming together to revive Imperator in some capacity. This event was set to take place on February 17th, 2024. We decided to lend our support to this fan-driven initiative by making a small announcement on our Imperator social media channels. When the event took place, it surpassed our expectations, doubling the peak concurrent player count.

Following the success of the event, we learned of Imperator Day 2.0, once again organised by Laith from Socialstreamers. This time, we decided to take more proactive steps and announced an Ides of March Sale for Imperator, while also showcasing the exceptional mod, Imperator: Invictus. The event saw another doubling of player numbers, reaching a peak of 2708 players, a figure not seen since early 2021.

This surge in community engagement prompted several former Imperator developers—such as Johan Andersson, Peter Nicholson, Evan Wu, and once again Niels—along with other developers like Lorenzo Berni and Erik Nikko who are passionate fans of the game and wanted to contribute, to begin work on the 2.0.4 patch as a gesture of appreciation to the Imperator community.

Collaboration with Modders

In the early stages of this patch's development, Niels integrated a mod called the Unofficial Patch Mod, created by "Umgssda." During the early days of Imperator, I engaged in discussions with the Invictus mod team and other creators to compile a list of Imperator: Rome Modding requests. The aim was to provide modders with the necessary resources to create their dream mods.

With the Modding Request list in hand, multiple developers dedicated spare time and personal development time (PDT) but Studio Green, Gold and Tinto all provided dev time to contribute to the development of the 2.0.4 patch. Updates for the patch began to roll out. It was during this phase that I once again reached out to Invictus regarding their vanilla bug fixes. They graciously agreed to grant us access to incorporate these fixes into the base game, further enhancing its stability

The Release

As we celebrate the release of 2.0.4 Augustus, I will provide a comprehensive credits list below, acknowledging everyone who contributed to this patch. Their names are now included in the game credits.This patch is a labour of love from the original developers of the game, along with others like myself, who simply adore Imperator and wish to give back to the community.

I also want to specifically note the amount of effort that Lorenzo Berni (@Duplo) has put into this, it is a huge undertaking into reviving old pipelines to make builds for all platforms & stores.

Thank you all for being part of the Imperator community and for playing this game. You are all truly amazing <3

Credits

Imperator: Augustus (2.0.4)

Niels Uiterwijk - Technical Director
Erik Jakobsson - Community Manager
Lorenzo Berni - Tech Lead
Johan Andersson - Studio Manager / Game Director
Rikard Jansson (Åslund) - Studio Manager
Peter Nicholson - Game Director
Jakov Denona - Build Engineer
Evan Wu - Game Programmer
Kuba Gabryel - Release Engineer
Alexander Fast - Build Engineer
David Karlsson-Lille - Game Platform Specialist
Erik Nikko - Game Programmer
Louise Mutel - Release Manager
Jorge Baringo - Internal QA
George Fournaris - Internal QA

Integrated fixes from the “Unofficial patch” mod

Thank you Umgssda

Integrated fixes provided by the Invictus team

Thank you Imperator: Invictus Mod Development team
Thank you Robbe Vander Kerken (aka Snowlet)
Thank you Nathaniell Van Drew (aka Dementive)

Why pay full price?

Wait, did I almost forget to tell you about the sale going live at 19:00 CET tonight? How silly of me! Imperator: Rome and all its DLCs will be discounted for the next 14 days, until May 9th!

• Imperator: Rome - 70% Off
• Imperator: Rome - Complete Soundtrack - 50% Off
• Imperator: Rome - Epirus Content Pack - 50% Off
• Imperator: Rome - Magna Graecia Content Pack - 50% Off
• Imperator: Rome - Heirs of Alexander Content Pack - 50% Off

Now, let's finally take a look at those patch notes!

Patch Notes

#######################
# 2.0.4 Augustus
######################

# Notes
- This patch should be save compatible, however not all fixes might be applied to your current save.

# Stability & Performance
- Improved overall memory consumption & performance
- Improved monthly tick performance by performing some more calculations in parallel (state modifiers)
- Portrait editor no longer crashes on open
- Updated SDL to 2.0.20 from 2.0.10
- Updated Nakama to 2.4.1 from 2.2.4

# Bugfixes
- Fix release as client state crash in the UI
- Fixed bug where temp modifiers were removed when provinces are annexed as part of a civil war
- Fix a bug when using add_to_war effect, adding a defender would always make it the war leader

- Fixed a bug where when annexing a country, their abroad prisoners, that were in your prison, would also be counted as an abroad prisoner for you, even though they are local prisoners.

- Fixed levy calculations being inverted
- default pop right is now correctly working & added proper logging of pop rights
- Fixed bug where unused modifiers were still being rewarded for specific missions (local & global cohort recruitment speed)
- Fixed bug where integrated cultures were still treated differently when they were converting to your primary religion

- Raised levies will select the best tactic for its composition.
- Civil Wars will no longer just pick 1 character, but instead take far more disloyal characters.
- Fixed bug where released nations during a peace deal would have no proper pantheon.
- Fixed bug where you would never see battle results from battles against pirates, barbarians or rebels.
- Fixed bug where pops could be promoted above what they were allowed to.

# Game Mechanic
- Diplomatic range is now calculated between border territories. This should make it easier to hire mercenaries as a large empire. Default diplo range has been tweaked based on this change.

- Added four new defines to balance the game (2 related to combat overruns, 2 related to civil war & dissenters)

# Modding Tools
- Added a modifier cultural_assimilation_speed_modifier, which changes the assimilation speed. Assimilation speed less than 0 prevents assimilation.
- Added a property for subject types to allow them to bypass usual subject diplomatic limitations for declaring war (allowed_to_declare_war_against_others). This is not enabled by default for the base game. To fully enable this to work you'll also need to change the allow triggers for wargoals
- Added play_sound_effect which allows you to play a sound effect, targeting a country (ported from ck3)
- Added set_antagonist = yes/no effect.
- Added has_capital_surplus to check for the existence of any capital bonuses from the state's owner
- Added has_capital_bonus_for_trade_good to check for the existence of any capital bonuses for the specific trade good
- Added a property for subject types to allow them to bypass usual subject diplomatic limitations for declaring war (allowed_to_declare_war_against_others). This is not enabled by default for the base game. To fully enable this to work you'll also need to change the allow triggers for wargoals
- Added modifiers for local_happiness_for_wrong_religion_modifier and happiness_for_wrong_religion_modifier which is applied on top of regular happiness for the same religion modifiers. Also fixed a typo with define for WRONG_RELIGION_HAPPINESS which applies always regardless of modifiers (currently set to )
- Made all hardcoded values related to civil wars moddable through define & added documentation on what they mean
- Added is_automated_trading trigger to check if a state has automated trading set
- Added distance_from trigger to check the distance between a province and another province, state (capital) or country (capital)
- Added can_unlock_invention to check if an invention can be unlocked by country (optionally ignoring cost, dependencies and potential trigger)
- Added can_add_trade_route to check if a trade route can be added.
- Added set_player_country effect to allow modders to switch the player's country
- Added add_deity_to_pantheon effect to allow deities outside of the allowed pool to a country's pantheon
- Added set_automated_trading effect to enable/disable state automated trading
- Added set_governor_policy effect to change governor policy
- Added unlock_invention effect to directly unlock a invention for free (without checking preconditions)
- Added add_trade_route and remove_trade_route effects to add and remove trade routes, respectively

- Enabled script profiling (available with -debug_mode startup command, 'print_event_timings` is the console command)
- Added option to run multiple commands at the same time (ExecuteConsoleCommands & ExecuteConsoleCommandsForced)

- Achievements now only require that the game is in ironman mode and you achieve them within the time limit (in-game years)
Note: This means that mods that are affecting the checksums, no longer will prohibit you from getting the achievements, neither does multiplayer.
- Upped the maximum number of tags (countries) from 2048 to 8192

# Other
- Updated default message settings

Integrated fixes from the "Unofficial Patch" mod:

# Fixes
## Missions
- Fixed mission trigger to ignore city territories in generic mission "Growth of ..." or "Pearl of .." step "Fruits of ..."
- Fix check for mission goal in Seleucid mission "Syrian Ambition" step "A Mediterranean capital" to really check for the building number as shown in the tooltip
- Fix mission availability for Cartage mission "Iberian Investments" to be selectable after finishing "The Iberian Struggle" with "Hispanic Overlord"
## Events

- Fix "There are other options..." option to actually show other territories for "Babarian Bartering" event for greek Missions in western Mediterranean and Pontus areas
- Fix party approval target in event for pop integration agenda for roman boni party
- Fix "No confidence" random event to target three distinct characters
- Fix "Demodamas the Explorer" event to select a sea harbor with enough population according to the existing check
- Fix "Fall of the " event to select the family to remove with lowest instead of highest prestige

## Gameplay

- Fix Governors selecting religious conversion policy when it is pointless (thanks to Lewa263)

## Texts

- Fixed reference from Argos to Korinthos in tooltip for spartan mission "The Second Peloponnesian League" step "Eastern Capitals"
- Corrected event text for the time passed since Alexanders death in initial Alexander the Great event. (english only)
- Fix territory names in event Options for Roman Mission "The pillars of Hercules"

Integrated fixes provided by the Invictus team:

# Achievements:
- Fixed the Great Destroyer achievement being impossible to obtain
- Fixed Cincinattus achievement being impossible to obtain

# Governor policy:
- Switched to more efficient iterator: any_integrated_culture
- AI will no longer attempt the religious conversion governor policy when they have major syncretism

# Inventions:
- Switched to more efficient iterator: any_integrated_culture

# Missions:
- Fixed broken tooltip in Strategic Fastness Antigonid task
- Fixed broken AI triggers in Carthaginian missions
- Fixed Hannid character not being put into the Hannid family
- Fixed AI carthage not paying for the city in Cypriot Opportunities task
- Fixed Experienced Shipwrights being impossible to complete as it requires impassable territories
- Added missing ai_mission_back_out_trigger and start_mission_ai_effect in missions
- Macedonian missions now account for Imperial Cult government type
- Fixed province investment checks not account for Spartan investments
- Addex extra sanity checks to Macedonian missions
- Fixed several Macedonian task triggers not working
- Fixed Roman AI not getting claims upon Aquitania
- Fixed Protector of the Aegean Sea not highlighting subjects correctly

# Character interactions:
- Fixed still being able to bribe mercenaries from countries with the Mercenary Benefits invention

# Unit Abilities:
- Optimised check for Barca Legion from Forced march

# Events:
- Fixed released countries not having a primary culture
- Fixed missing 'equals' characters in the scripts
- Fixed wrongly set global variable for the parthian invasion
- Fixed Antigonid capital being incorrectly set upon collapsing
- Fixed Mithradaic events not properly unlocking Pontus content
- Fixed Arsaces being able to spawn twice
- Fixed ruler not appearing in Carthaginian Iberian events
- Deleted extra dot from opinion modifier in Roman Greece missions
- Fixed Eastern Empire mission not triggering if you only have land in Macedonia
- Fixed duplicated ai_chance blocks in Western Greek missions
- Added sanity checks to ports being built through effect
- Fixed league of Korinthos not properly annexing subjects
- Fixed Serapis sanctuary taking 36 and not 360 days to be built
- Added failsafe in Egyptian character creation for events
- Fixed wrong tooltip for opinion modifier in Cities of Greece task
- Fixed Epirus subjugating themselves in the Magna Graecian missions
- Fixed Pax Epirum potentially spamming the error log
- Fixed characters befriending themselves
- Fixed desecration event opinion tooltip showing the wrong country
- Fixed broken modifier duration in Armenian events
- Fixed politics events using incorrect syntax to check countries in diplomatic range
- Fixed Republic event incorrectly checking for party scopes
- Fixed Cretan event occasionally annexing the world
- Fixed Co-Consuls being deposed by going to the olympics
- Fixed most prestigious family fading into obscurity
- Fixed startup events not pointing to your country
- Fixed error log spam from a dead character losing health

# GUI:
- Removed unused GUI types from GUI files making the GUI editor more stable
- select_import_destination.gui changed the y size of a scrollarea to remain within the window
- Replaced 4 buttons in console.gui that crash the game with useful buttons for modding
- portrait_editor_window made it possible to move the window and made all features usable

# Shaders:
- Changed gfx/FX/coat_of_arms/coat_of_arms_textured_emblem.shader so textured emblems actually work, re-added their red channel which was accidentally removed.

# Localization:
- Fixed loads of spelling errors
- Fixed various grammatical errors
- Fixed Agriana being called Agrianaa
- Fixed Ati Muwer being referred to as a male
- Fixed missing apostrophe in 'Attar
- Fixed capitalization issues
- Fixed loyalty icon not appearing
- Removed extra spaces after names

# Various fixes:
- Commented out lines triggering non-existent events
- Fixed AI Rome not getting claims on Central Gaul
- Fixed Anoint heir checking for a commented out law
- Fixed Forced March checking for a non-existent terrain type
- Added many missing equal signs
- Replaced errorous 7 character with "{"
- Fixed missions checking for "mountains" instead of "mountain"
- Fixed "[" being used instead of "{" in effect syntax
- Fixed Elephantina being unobtainable due to checking for "warelephants" instead of "warelephant" unit
- Fixed Ferrata being unobtainable due to checking for "heavy_infrantry" instead of "heavy_infantry" unit
- Fixed Antigonid events in rare cases triggering a non-existent event
- Fixed League of Korinthos forming while the player is a subject of Macedon in Greece triggering the wrong event
- Fixed non-existent Rhodes sacking event being triggered
- Fixed Carthaginian naval dominance missions checking for non-existent region
- Fixed Thracian and Roman events improperly checking for Galatia region
- Fixed Oinoandia coat of arms having a wrongly defined colour
- Fixed cancelling the Death to Tyrants mission potentially finding a wrong character to put as ruler
- Fixed edge-case where recruiting a character could raise an error
- Fixed using the omen effect on Daniel having wrong syntax
- Fixed Apotheosis manpower and money effects not having a minimum setup properly
- Fixed several wrongly defined minimum and maximums
- Fixed Daring trait not increasing likelihood of injuries
- Fixed "Forced Smiles" event where Commander demands an office for a friend not triggering and not being updated to account for Governors
- Fixed wrong areas being selected in for loyalty hit in event where Governor demands they adapt to local mannerisms
- Fixed "Learning from experience" event potentially selecting a party leader and being impossible for non-republics to trigger
- Fixed several minor edge-case and syntax issues in generic infrastructure mission events
- Fixed Carthaginian trade mission events showing the wrong character
- Fixed unneeded if's in monarchy events
- Fixed "Crisis in X" event attempting to show too many characters
- Fixed Rapax and Improba distinctions never triggering
- Fixed broken edge-case tooltip in Install Philokles decision
- Fixed Egyptian marriage event potentially failing to find a Thracian bride
- Ensured else_if was properly used instead of using else, if
- In common\loyalty\00_events.txt line 2876 was `ymonths`, it has been changed to `months`
- In events\storms.txt there were 2 checks for `is_in_region = areas`, the areas region does not exist so these lines were removed
- In common\modifiers\00_from_events_province.txt there were a few modifiers with like `local_population_happiness = -0.1.0` that I removed the extra decimal point from.
- The monthly_tarentum_war_pulse on_action incorrectly used is_in_region = carthage_area which is an area not a region, I changed it to africa_region.
- Fix great_work_template_06 being used in gw_ai_build even though it was removed
- Fix italia_region being used instead of central_italy_region in greek missions 4
- Fix missing = in make_subject effect in 01_seleukid_missions_03_anatolia.txt and in events/me_seleukid_03_anatolia.txt
- Fix missing closing bracket in script_values/00_army_values.txt
- Fix missing = on line 578 of script_values/00_mission_egypt.txt
- Fix is_in_region = tripolitania_occidentalis_area in script_values/00_missions.txt, changed to is_in_area.
- Fix bugged is_in_area = carthage_area check in dhe_dde_pyrhus.txt events file
- Fix block of code incorrectly placed inside of a random_list effect in events/governor_policies.txt line 657
- Fix incorrectly spelled colors in coat_of_arms/00_pre_scripted_countries.txt
- Remove change_country_color = "median_color" line from form_media decisions because median_color does not exist
- Remove duplicate modifier = {} blocks from military traditions in 00_latin, 00_persian, and 00_persian_2
- Fix ai_build_city_pay_price_effect being used in area scope instead of country scope in 01_spartan_missions_02_peloponnesus.txt
- Fix incorrect use of is_culture trigger in modifiers/00_triggered_character_modifiers.txt
- Remove duplicate script values in 00_mission_antigonid, 00_mission_carthage, and 00_mission_epirus
- Fix incorrect scope for fam:40 used in scripted_effects/00_dde_pyrrhus_effects
- Fix incorrect scope for has_same_family trigger in scripted_effects/00_on_action_effects
- Fix incorrect usage of unit_owner scope in scripted_guis/desecrate_holy_site.txt
- Remove duplicate map = yes field in civilian_road_building.txt
- Change floor = 1 to proper use with floor = yes in unit_abilities/pillage.txt
- Fix incorrect scope for owns_or_subject_owns on line 624 of dhe_macedon.txt
- Fix usage of has_culture_group instead of country_culture_group in dhe_judea.txt
- Fix incorrect use of country scope in right_portrait fields of events in country_diplomacy.txt
- Fix left_portrait = yes in me_roman_2_provincia.txt
- Fix use of [ instead of { in me_greek_2_greece.txt
- Fix use of has_province_modifier instead of has_character_modifier on line 547 of rel_flavor_buddhist
- Fix incorrect scoping to head_of_family in royal_marriage.txt
- Fix missing = on line 279 of characterwindow.gui
- Fix missing = on line 246 of messages.gui
- Fix missing = on line 189 of multi_unit_window.gui
- Fix missing bracket in culture_view.gui and government_view.gui for the top level base_window block
- Fix too many decimals in debug_menus.gui line 649
- Fix too many decimals in multiplayer_lobby.gui
- Fix broken block of brackets at the bottom of game_configuration.gui
- Remove extra } at the end of overview_view.gui
- Fix missing bracket in select_fabricate_claim.gui line 77
- Remove extra bracket from the end of select_target_character.gui and create_social_profile_window.gui
- Fix missing bracket errors in gw_tower_03_bottom.asset and female_clothes_iberian_3.asset asset files
- Fix missing = in frontend_mainview, frontend_singleplayer, loadscreen, and progressbar_idler
- Fix incorrect spelling of GetNameWithNoTooltip function in shared/cooltip.gui