IR tries to do everything other PDX games are doing, but everything it does is meh at best. You can't play tall like in EU4, character interaction isnt as great as in CK3, pops interactions are lower quality than in Stellaris. I can only understand people like it because of the setting. I came back watching all the youtubers giving the game high praise, but its bland and boring.
I think about this game when im not playing it and i get the urge to play it again. I dunno what it means but oh well here i am with 50 hours played in the last 2 weeks
Lol I was just thinking that too, even last time i did play it I noticed things like the pop system and stuff and do kind of like that, some of the ck3-ish elements of it and what not. It's almost more fun to try and maintain a system falling apart than to paint the map in the first place while you grow as Rome lol
Because humans like when "one strong emperor" makes things right and Rome was kinda pinacle of power and culture in Europe for a long time. Even if that one emperor usualy destroys everythingnin the end or beautiful thibgs are just ideas and the harsh and brutal reality of ancient world is kinda dismissed or ignored.
Agreed. Map is absolutely great. I prefer it over CK3 map. I also love socio-economic depth of game. Another great feature is that you can let your army be controlled by AI.
Imperator Rome has really a ton of great mechanics. And imho the best feature is that compared to the other paradox games it can really be harder to maintain an intact empire.
Yeah, especially because of all the different mechanics that make a vast diverse empire hard to maintain, like cultures and varies loyalties of generals and governors etc
Definitely, in CK3 I have created many empires and it’s just too easy to maintain them. The only thing that might complicate things is if you are playing as a Pagan religion and the Vatican decides to attack you. Even so, it’s easy to fight that back. In imperator I have lost entire empires due to internal conflicts and even barbarians have given me trouble when they decide to invade me while I am at war. I absolutely love this game. I feel like I still need to learn about 70% of its features but I love it.
It astonishes me to this day that a company from sweden of all places can make proper historically-flavored games like this without being consumed by wokeism, not least from their own government. How is paradox even allowed to exist? It almost makes me believe in god 😇
@@jonleibow3604 😆 ...but seriously, imagine their shareholders just *decided* that the romans were black, and run by a matriarchy, because "this fits the narrative of the 21st century". If this was a fresh IP in a proto-historical world, i would not have a problem with that - but it's not.
It is without a doubt an heavily underrated and overlooked game now. It is extremely fun, and frustrating. It definitely challenges you in some play throughs. My favorite play through was as the Seleucid Diadochi. It took me a year or two shy of end game to unite Alexander’s empire. Mostly because I spent way too much time trying to get as many of the cool bloodlines into one Uber ruler. It is definitely a title that always feels fresh to play after you haven’t a while.
@@AndysParadox I personally dont even think so as for me the level of detail in the I:R terrain map is 10x higher than in vic3. Although its just personal preference Another point I wanted to mention is that the game is surprisingly well optimised for paradox standards. In eu4, late game hoi4 and ck3 youre bound to have lags as the game progresses but I:R runs very smoothly throughout
Adding one litte point on your list: collapses of states. Yes, you have that blobbing you know from most Paradox games. But in I:R you also see the downfall of empires. I had one memorable game as playing Masilia. In this match I sourrounded my state with mostly loyal forreign gallish vassals and did well, until Rome came and their legions knocked at my eastern borders. After two wars lost, it felt like game over, but a massiv rebellion cuted the roman empire in half, giving me the chance to recover, while their feared legions devastated their own lands. This feeling of survival because of foreing internal strifes is something I never had before in any other (paradox) game. It makes I:R truely unique.
Massilia is such a blast. IR is the only paradox game where you actually feel the consequences of playing as a foreign ruler. Massilia, being a Greek colony in southern Gaul, will have an almost exclusively Gaulish population for the whole game that will hate you and be impossible to recruit. There’s too many cultures to integrate all of them, and they are all a separate religion so assimilation will take a very very long time. These things just don’t matter in other grand strategy games like they do in imperator
The game is definitely addictive once you learn how to play it. It has a bit of a learning curve, but that's only because it gives you so many mechanics to interact with. And you can still have fun while ignoring some aspects (e.g. focus on conquests while not paying attention to pop management, or vice-versa). Glad to see others love Imperator as much as I do!
What happened to IR is a tragedy in my opinion. The devs put in a lot of effort to fix the game, and they were mostly successfully. Shame that the player base never returned.
At this day it's UI is basically shi***. The game still has very basic bugs, that can only be find in beta games, for example: the issue selecting a small province when it has an army on it (like the smallest provinces in Greece). I love Paradox games, I love ancient times and I still play IR, but without any doubt, devs didn't put enough effort on it.
All I know is I'm a big big fan of the recent and massive upgrade paradox has done to their campaign maps in the last several games. IR looks great and CK3 looks absolutely gorgeous. It really makes the grand part of grand strategy actually feel grand. I just can't even bring myself to go back and try anything older now and I was a big fan of CK2 but those old frameworks just look hideous now and in a game type like they make where you're genuinely starting at maps and menus for hours, it makes the whole experience much more immersive.
I've literally just turned ck2 on for first time in 4 years to play a fully fleshed out GOT mod. The Map, Graphics, and importantly UI, are just heinous. It's aged awfully.
@tapewormlondon ya, EU4 is still hanging in there, it benefited from being somewhat of a new engine when it came out and it still looks ok, it would be nice if they moved onto 5 though but it of course would be a long grind getting to a fully fleshed out game like 4 is now.
@@TamaHawkLive I think most either forget, or were not there for what an amazing sequel EU4 was. Kept most of the great expansions built into the new model and just built on 3. EU4 was superior in my opinion right out the gate. From day one. An amazing game, sequel and laid the foundations for a brilliant DLC set ti expand further. Ck3 has been disappointing in that regard. The black death being a major feature in something that had it several years ago is frustrating
The empire management aspects of IR really don't get enough love. Founding cities, connecting them with roads, and having them specialize in different things (trade, military, culture, etc.) is always strangely rewarding. Combine that with mods that breathe life into the near entirety of the map via missions and events and you have a pretty darn addictive game!
I feel like when during the Marius update the devs said that they considered what this game was supposed to be, compared to the other games and concluded it was a civilisation builder, they nailed it in the execution. The game takes a good bit from many other Paradox titles (CK3 character interaction and levies, EU4 great power management, Stellaris pop management), but puts it together in a blend that represents antiquity quite well, especially notions like how wars are fought (standing armies were an achievement and made countries like Rome special) or how political organisation improved.
I'm so glad this game is getting a revival. I've put a good 600 hours into it in the past year or so. There are so many cool historical details and interesting playstyles. Not to mention the immersive, and realistic the pop system and INCREDIBLE modding community. Hearing that the next Europa Universalis will have a similar pop system has gotten me very excited for the future of Paradox games
This is a game I want to love. I was stoked when it came out, bought it with the epirus skins or w.e. I had difficulty wrapping my head around the mechanics. I watched some videos and was learning but then lost interest. You've convinced me to try again though. We'll see how this goes. 🤞
While I don’t want a full on CK3, making things a bit more clear would’ve gone a long way, or indeed made things just a bit more personal, while not making the entire game about your family
Yeah, 1:56 I do think it lacks a lot on the character management possibily because of the focus on all things at the same time, they bite off more than they can chew. It would've been awesome that the game followed your dynasty, with civil war, coup d'Etat or even exiles don't turning into an instant game over (imagine being able to reconquer your own kingdom with foreign help), or in the case of the Republics I couldn't really get attached to any of my characters because they would end up being replaced by "Random Roman Politician Number 96". Imagine if you could control a Roman family and make them go from the lowest of the Cursus Honorum to the highest, or the other way around, being ""dethroned"" by a rival family and eventually get your revenge. I don't think the game is bad, but it feels incomplete, and specially now that the devs abandoned it. Maybe a full rework or a new DLC would spice things a little and bring new players, but they would not gonna do it because they see I:R as a failure :(
I've always been a lover of Roman History--every, and any era. Just recently in my 30's, after working many years in a corporate environment, I got an "itch" to start playing Roman era PC games (games in general, really). Using Roman era mods, I started with the Total war games/mods, then tried CK 2/3 and found all of them to be really, REALLY fun games. ESPECIALLY Divide et Impera for Rome 2, and Ancient Empires for Attila. So far, there hasn't been one Roman Era game that I've played that checks more boxes than Imperator: Rome with the mods Invictus, FMO, Tribal Legions, and Slave Raids for all. This combo IS the best Roman era PC game ever.
Because it offers an experience that no other paradox game does. In the terms of its mechanics and features. Having said that this game needs a lot of love. I firmly believe that it can yet be developed into the crown of Paradox irrespective of its age.
Despite them abandoning I:R, I still have more hours in it than in CK3. It's such a good game but it launched in a terrible state and when they finally started fixing things and making the game better they just decided to suddenly abandon it because people didn't instantly jump back to it. Before they did that sh*t, I actually bought every DLC of the games I played and was overall happy with my purchases, despite problems with them at launch. I was happy with them because I figured they'd fix them over time and most of the annoyances would be temporary. I:R broke that trust, I no longer buy DLCs in the first couple days and sometimes I don't buy them at all despite being able to afford it. I no longer support the company, now I buy after I can see somewhat reliable ratings and when I'm particularly interested in the content in that game/dlc. It's not like I mindlessly bought everything before, but I certainly was more willing to show trust in them and spend money on them. I've saved at least 50$ on other games/dlcs I'd just have bought for the sake of giving it a chance and knowing it might not be for me and that's a low estimate. I hope there are hundreds of thousands of other people who are just as mad at them, but I know that I'm probably a minority. I still buy their games, because for anyone interested in this kind of game, they're almost the entire market. But if there'd been any real alternatives back when I:R was abandoned, they'd certainly lost me as a customer.
Bro that thumbnail with you first conquering Iberia before Greece got me here. Then I saw you are also playing with Terra Indomita...Then I saw you are playing with Terrain map mode as well... 🥲 You are amazing. Followed and liked.
The visual design of the UI makes it hard for me to get into sometimes compared to the newer PDX games like CK3 and Vic3. Information feels a lot more clustered and hard to read, things are too packed together and get lost (the character windows in particular stand out to me as an outdated looking mess). CK3 and Vic3 have their own respective faults, but the modern visual design of their UI is something I hope Paradox keeps moving forward with all their games. That being said, I still enjoy Imperator 😅
Personally I think the UI design of imperator is better, reminds me of EU4, everything is right there rather than kinda being hidden behind screen-dominating windows
My current favourite mod for I:R is the one making the start date 600 BC For some reason I just really enjoy playing in a simpler time, before the rise of Rome, when the Hellenistic world was in its golden age
I actually really enjoyed playing Imperator Rome. I have absolutely no idea why it died. 2.0 is fantastic and while I know that the Invictus mod is supposedly necessary, I have no idea what it fixes because it's already fantastic.
They left it because it had a very low player base, which sadly meant that working on new DLC might not have paid off… which is sad because making a better game might’ve gotten more players to come back or entirely new ones, but yeah
Glad to see a video made about this game, it's such a hidden gem nowadays. All the mechanics you mention are so great that when I play CK3 I really miss all the state management, culture, religion and how armies work that Imperator has.
I tried Imperator when it released and found out that the gameplay revolved around finding small state with many allies, occupy just first target and annex entire alliance. And other mechanics felt superflous. I heard there was massive update to all mechanics. Some of things you mention look very nice though there are some things that feel fishy... Maybe I should try it again... But I will prefer to test demo...
Imperator Rome was such a great concept of a game. I joined late, so I already had a good experience and got it with the expansions for cheap, but then it was just abandoned. I hope uses lesson learned from CK3's QoL, graphics and UI improvements compared to CK2
Totally agree , this game deserves to be revisited by PDX base. I wasn't playing during the launch, and looking at how it looked then vs now, I see how much it evolved for the better. I love PDX games, but they all take a lot of time to get over the hump to understand and enjoy, and this one I think actually makes a great gateway for many players as it introduces elements from the other games like CK, EU, HOI, VIC, but less in-depth of each of their strengths so when you play them, you already have familiarity with some of the base mechanics.
I think the game really shines through the pop management systems with culture, religion, and class all being unique factors. Integrating new populations or assimilating groups into your core cultural identities presents an interesting tradeoff as well.
Even though I was a Paradox gamer back in the days (lots of hours in EU III DW) Rome II absolutely monopolized my gaming time for the past 8 years or so. I purchased this game on sale but barely played it for 1h, it happened the same with Stellaris. I can see they are great games, and that I'd probably enjoy them a lot, but I feel too old to learn such a plethora of mechanics.
I personally think imperator is okay, I picked it up when 2.0 released and had some fun campaigns. However I did tend to find that it still very much fell into the map painting character in many respects. In my opinion, the game represents a jack of all trades whilst being a master of none of them. Still an interesting experiment and valuable in the sense that it got Paradox to really track back on releasing games in a terrible state.
i usually wouldn't play a game about a historical period that doesn't interest me in the slightest... but imperator is the only exception to that and i think that proves the game is pretty damn good
This game had a lot of potential. But at launch it was disastrous because it was boring and people were sick of the mana system. Imperator Rome tried to combine Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis which threw a lot of people off. The game isn't bad now after numerous patches. A lot of features in IR are actually good like the automated army and battle tactics, and different units actually have an impact like heavy infantry will almost always beat light infantry. Also, I've always hated how EU4 restricted the amount of generals and admirals, so having characters that have those good traits like CK was a good feature.
I had actually forgotten about this game, and am now heading over to steam to see how much it’s going for in the sales. Paradox should definitely send you over some royalties 😅
I bought the game previous sale. Didn't play that much, started three weeks ago and now I am addicted. The learning curve was steep, and there aren't that many tutorials compared to ck3. The reason I like this game more is because I didn't like the inheritance system of CK3 (some say that's the game, fine, but I prefer a state system! Like Rome total War or imperator Rome or even koh2)
About your point on navies around 14 minutes in, yea one thing I hate about ck3 is the fact that you can just embark your army for a gold cost, I much prefer the old system from ck2 where you have to raise ships first, it was tedious sure but that could be solve by adding naval rally points like how ck3 added army rally points.
I agree with you, the game is fantastic. However, I’m spoiled by years and years of Total War battles. Every time I start a paradox game, I miss that aspect. Makes me wish I had played these games when I was much younger and before Total War grew on me. Maybe some day I’ll get sick of Total War, but I’m always going back…
A big problem for imperator was that it essentially had an identity crisis when it launched was it a family dynastic simulator like ck3 or nation building game like eu4 or was it an economic simulator like victoria 2? It tried to do a little bit of everything and was released way to early. The bones are still good and i do hold it against paradox for abandoning the game rather as soon as they finished the obligated ore order dlc.
Great geame. Has more-or-less everything I expect of strategy game. There are some things I do not like, but all-in-all one of the best I played in last 30 years.
Glory to Bythinia ! Conqueror of Europe asia and the levant ! Glory to Zipoteïs dynasty ! Playing invictus is so fun, bythinia tree is epic and i love starting surrounded by super major player and crafting my bythinian realm in the middle of the chaos of the successions wars. last campaign i'm in 612 and got 7k+ pop (with 3k+ bythinian converted) and 525+ territory.
Imperator:Rome and Victoria 3 are tied as my favourite Paradox Interactive games. It's because other Paradox grand strategy games are only give very basic simulations of demographics and economies.
I honestly think the current version of Imperator is the best Paradox game. The only thing its missing is more flavor outside the Graeco-Roman world and some more time stamps.
Imperator Rome v.2.0 is an underrated Map painter game. Cheers to all the haters 😂🍻 they still declare the game as dead. It would me not suprise, if Paradox would release from nowhere a new DLC/Patch and flashing their Community again like they did with the announcement of Vic3 at the pdxcon. We all know how chilled and cool theses guys from Paradox are, that theoretically could be really happen for real 😂.
And if it only had battles like Total War, this game would had been the most played strategy game current date. Paradox should contact and recruit the guy who created Manor Lord and Imperator: Rome 2, should have battles like TW.
The problem with Imperator Rome is that there is a hardcoded tag limit. If it is exceeded, the game crashes. In Terra Indomita it's even worse because there are more factions, so the limit is reached faster than in Vanilla. I think this is a fundamental design flaw in the game that robs it of its full potential.
I think, for better or for worse, _Imperator_ was the last Paradox grand strategy game that took itself seriously. Since then Paradox seems to have leaned much more into a light-hearted, casual design philosophy with recent titles having more stylised graphics and streamlined mechanics which, for me at least, just makes them feel much less immersive/engaging when compared to their older titles.
Unmentioned feature: the levies raised are tied directly to citizen & noble pops in each province. How it works: a province's levies are based on both the number of citizen & noble pops per province AND their culture. For example, if a culture (like the Central Indian ones) is 40% War Elephants & 60% Archers, and that culture is the only one with noble & citizen pops in the province, then youll get war elephants & archers equal to those percentages. BUT if you have a mixture of different integrated cultures, then the levy will be more mixed. The size of the levy is also dependent on those numbers. So if you suddenly decide to integrate a large minority, suddenly you'll have many more troops at yohr disposal. But jf you strip tjem of their rights, youll lose those troops. ...conversely, if you dont bother to defend your core lands from invaders & let your main holdings be seized, as your pops die from their cities being sacked, so too does your max levy size shrink. So if you want to cripple an enemy, slaughter their major cities - youll shrink their future army by a third.
Small correction,as a monarchy you don't lose the game when a ruler from a different dynasty takes control,just a ton of stability,that would have been a cool feature to balance monarchic though as rn they are just stronger than republics
Imagine if paradox tried to mix more CK elements into IR it would be the best game of the whole series. I can also imagine if they added diseases where you see your city pops disappear from a large disease.
I must agree fully about your views on this. As far as military you need Iron for heavy troops. You need wood for ships and it just makes it far more strategic. I recall one of my play throughs as Judaea which I created a mod which allows the formation of Israel. I needed heavy troops really if I was going to push into Egypt and the Empires around me were crumbling so I took advantage and headed north taking everything I could until I had my iron source secured. I already at that point had my wood. So I decided since I had the iron needed I was going to take on Egypt. Well, I didn't realize, but the AI for Egypt does like Carthage and will go get a ton of mercenaries. It was a hard fought war and I had from Alexandria to just north of Syria that little bend in Anatolia next to Syria. I made it as east as the Euphrates and south as the north area of Arabia. It was one of my favorite campaigns. Judaea has a lot of issues with politics and families which civil wars are very easy to get at least for me anyhow. So I went with the King David style of killing off family members. If at war I put them in charge of an area and make sure they don't have many troops to purposely die. Which is another huge thing in the game. If your leader is commanding an army and that army is destroyed. That leader is now dead like Crusader Kings. It is a fast transition between rulers as the game makes you feel like well time to the next guy. Crusader Kings I never get through maybe 3 generations. Rome I get to the end and wish it were longer. Even though I played out about 500 years. I never play 500 years in most of the games. My attention span struggles at that point, but Imperator just keeps me locked in.
I also like this game. And I especially like the part paradox won't add crazy updates which totally modifies the game. If by any chance they do updates, I want them to consult with mod creators and plan updates.
11:00 that the armies get loyal to the generals and so on is something that would be amazing to see in Vicky3 in a way. Characters and Pops could have not just loyalty or not to the country, but have a loyalty they could be split between country, current government, a political ideology, a character, a party, etc. i.e. on pop has 100 loyalty points which are then divided between targets (including "none of the above". If an agitator has a high % of loyalty directed at them then if they changed party (or some such) then all their follower would tag along. etc etc. Wouldn't be my top priority even for V3 politics changes, but it could be good (my top priority would be having real differences in electoral & parliamentary systems. Having the UK have a real House of Lords and First Past the Post house of Commons while the US has a senate, while a third country has a proportional representation unicameral parliament, etc, that would make for much more of a sense of every country being different when playing).
I love IR, but as a Roman lover I would prefer that you have a character instead of the state. It would be so satisfactory to raise the ranks in the roman empire, or to have a civil war to conquer the power of the state.
How this game manage pops and how you can grow tall i love it... we all are unlucky that Paradox cross the red line on his politics of gives the games empty to replenish later with DLC... sometimes is too much empty and thats the case with this game.
Do not forget that IR had many gameplay trailers and fans of Paradox were screaming at them to not put in a mana system. Months upon months of screaming of no mana system and yet they did it. Only to patch it out after being released for months but then everybody already put the game aside. And it was also unbelievably bare bones at launch.
@@AndysParadox Yea very sad because I love the time period and Paradox making a grand strategy about it was a dream come true. I still like the game but it's so sad that Paradox will never really expand on it.
I’ve considered making one, but sadly that takes a lot of time, and I don’t know if I will find it, and I don’t know if it will be of relative value in terms of viewer interest :( I’m sure there’s something out there though!
The game sucks, I know its tough to say and that lacks nuance, but it does. When the 2.0 drop landed in February, players spiked to 7000 concurrents, and within a couple weeks fell back to below 1000. It's always had "potential" but you can't expect people to actively engage or play with something while they wait for Paradox to fix it over and over again. The game was out for 2 years at that point and had 6 major updates plus DLCs. For me personally the game was trending in the right direction until 1.4. That really upset the game for me, and 1.5 basically killed it. 2.0 was not at all the direction I wanted so I stopped playing. I appreciate any take on the game, and people trying to revitalize it. It'd be great if that happened, but I think its bizarre to assume this gem of a game exists and nobody knows about it. Twenty to thirty thousand people played the 2.0 update and they bounced off it very fast. There's many good reasons for that; Mana still rules major decisions. Loyalty flips on a dime for absurd reasons that are anti-thetical to human behaviour, this happens after a rework where it was actually quite good (not perfect). The rework for republics went from a five party system with intricate backing based on your play to instead a three party system with a homogenized approval rating for all decisions. No substantial differentiation between nations, everything is a modifier; all troops are the exact same its just "5% discipline" for Roman and "+1defense" for Greek. There's no hoplites, or phalanx formations or fighting styles or equipment. Instead, elephants have 1000 in the unit, as does heavy infantry, as does everything. All buildings are the same for everyone, and you don't need any resources to build something special or recruit special units or anything like that. I could go on. The game lacks a soul to me, lacks real character. It could be set in any timeframe before gunpowder really and still work the exact same.
I know the game is not perfect but straight up saying "it sucks" its a bit too much. I think its a mediocre game at worst and a decent game at best(personally i enjoy it a lot but im trying to be objective)
This is a stupid comment. First, loyalty "flipping on a dime" is not a bad thing, and pretty characteristic of powerful generals historically anyways. If a character has an event where the player assassinates their family, of course loyalty with flip. It sounds to me like you're bad at the game. Second, how does mana rule the game? Political influence for example, a real mana, isn't ruling major decisions, only minor ones such as adding a new city. If you are mad at Imperator for having +5% xyz, then you should hate all Paradox games, because it is the system that influences all of their games at its core. And of course all buildings are the same, you are nit-picking. How much flavor do you want? Also, you do need certain resources to build special ships, such as wood. But these are all extra content that does not drastically change the game fundamentally. If you just hate Rome, go back to playing Anno 1800, which in comparison to Imperator Rome is pitifully lacking any "depth", or whatever that means.
@@callumander4141i unfortunately dont have time to adress you compeltely, but my channel that focused on the game is called Republic of Play. I reviewed each patch that came out for the game and gave up on it at 1.5. The videos did quite well, and I put 100hrs into each patch desconstructing the changes analytically. I left the game with a wishlist of things in that final review I think could help, but didnt want to be negative and felt the game was going in a direction that made it worse after 1.3. The loyalty change made the game super easy, that was a critique of it. Previous to the change loyalty worsened or bettered over time, so you couldnt click a button to stop a civil war. No need to be so defensive and I never said Anno has more depth than Imperator. For the most part my fav pdx games are CK and Stellaris. I dunno or care which has more depth.
im thinking about getting this game but still on the fence. if i decide to get it, should i immediately start with the mentioned overhaul mods or is tthe vanilla experience good too, especially as a beginner? i did play ck3 and hoi4
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I'm just here to support the revival of Imperator: Rome. Go algorithm, do your thing.
Appreciate it ;)
same
IR tries to do everything other PDX games are doing, but everything it does is meh at best. You can't play tall like in EU4, character interaction isnt as great as in CK3, pops interactions are lower quality than in Stellaris. I can only understand people like it because of the setting. I came back watching all the youtubers giving the game high praise, but its bland and boring.
I think about this game when im not playing it and i get the urge to play it again. I dunno what it means but oh well here i am with 50 hours played in the last 2 weeks
You and me both my friend! Did you just pick it up?
@@AndysParadox i picked it up about 3 weeks ago. Its a good game but i think its simply overshadowed by other paradox games
Lol I was just thinking that too, even last time i did play it I noticed things like the pop system and stuff and do kind of like that, some of the ck3-ish elements of it and what not. It's almost more fun to try and maintain a system falling apart than to paint the map in the first place while you grow as Rome lol
Because humans like when "one strong emperor" makes things right and Rome was kinda pinacle of power and culture in Europe for a long time.
Even if that one emperor usualy destroys everythingnin the end or beautiful thibgs are just ideas and the harsh and brutal reality of ancient world is kinda dismissed or ignored.
States, Cultures, Warfare and army management in IR are my favourite thing, along with a *Real* map for once in pdx games.
Yeah, the map is so good, there are just so many little details here that makes it all such a good package
Agreed. Map is absolutely great. I prefer it over CK3 map. I also love socio-economic depth of game. Another great feature is that you can let your army be controlled by AI.
@@mermeoth7178 I thought AI controlled armies was bad in Imperator Rome. Doesn't it mean your generals aren't loyal?
@@DJ-1Q84 You can set them objective like protect borders or attack. It's very useful in some situations.
Imperator Rome has really a ton of great mechanics. And imho the best feature is that compared to the other paradox games it can really be harder to maintain an intact empire.
Yeah, especially because of all the different mechanics that make a vast diverse empire hard to maintain, like cultures and varies loyalties of generals and governors etc
Definitely, in CK3 I have created many empires and it’s just too easy to maintain them. The only thing that might complicate things is if you are playing as a Pagan religion and the Vatican decides to attack you. Even so, it’s easy to fight that back.
In imperator I have lost entire empires due to internal conflicts and even barbarians have given me trouble when they decide to invade me while I am at war.
I absolutely love this game. I feel like I still need to learn about 70% of its features but I love it.
I just hope Paradox paid this guy for him to this clear promotion video. This means Paradox is looking back at this game
They didn’t sadly, I’d clearly disclose that if they did!
It astonishes me to this day that a company from sweden of all places can make proper historically-flavored games like this without being consumed by wokeism, not least from their own government. How is paradox even allowed to exist? It almost makes me believe in god 😇
'wokeism' lol
@@jonleibow3604 😆
...but seriously, imagine their shareholders just *decided* that the romans were black, and run by a matriarchy, because "this fits the narrative of the 21st century".
If this was a fresh IP in a proto-historical world, i would not have a problem with that - but it's not.
@@jonleibow3604he’s got a point.
The best bit is the sense of building a civilization and building cities on the map - this game should not have been abandoned
Agreed! I love the beautiful city sprawl too!
Yeah it scratched that Civ itch in a way that not even Civ does.
It is without a doubt an heavily underrated and overlooked game now. It is extremely fun, and frustrating. It definitely challenges you in some play throughs. My favorite play through was as the Seleucid Diadochi. It took me a year or two shy of end game to unite Alexander’s empire. Mostly because I spent way too much time trying to get as many of the cool bloodlines into one Uber ruler. It is definitely a title that always feels fresh to play after you haven’t a while.
Agreed!
Maybe if people continue to show interest they game devs could tackle on the next project to revive and revamp the system or just make a a predecessor
It has the best looking map in all of paradox hands down
It’s gorgeous, in many ways tied with Victoria 3 I’d say!
@@AndysParadox I personally dont even think so as for me the level of detail in the I:R terrain map is 10x higher than in vic3. Although its just personal preference
Another point I wanted to mention is that the game is surprisingly well optimised for paradox standards. In eu4, late game hoi4 and ck3 youre bound to have lags as the game progresses but I:R runs very smoothly throughout
For sure!
Adding one litte point on your list: collapses of states. Yes, you have that blobbing you know from most Paradox games. But in I:R you also see the downfall of empires.
I had one memorable game as playing Masilia. In this match I sourrounded my state with mostly loyal forreign gallish vassals and did well, until Rome came and their legions knocked at my eastern borders. After two wars lost, it felt like game over, but a massiv rebellion cuted the roman empire in half, giving me the chance to recover, while their feared legions devastated their own lands.
This feeling of survival because of foreing internal strifes is something I never had before in any other (paradox) game. It makes I:R truely unique.
That sounds awesome! Masilia sounds like a blast
Massilia is such a blast. IR is the only paradox game where you actually feel the consequences of playing as a foreign ruler. Massilia, being a Greek colony in southern Gaul, will have an almost exclusively Gaulish population for the whole game that will hate you and be impossible to recruit. There’s too many cultures to integrate all of them, and they are all a separate religion so assimilation will take a very very long time. These things just don’t matter in other grand strategy games like they do in imperator
The game is definitely addictive once you learn how to play it. It has a bit of a learning curve, but that's only because it gives you so many mechanics to interact with. And you can still have fun while ignoring some aspects (e.g. focus on conquests while not paying attention to pop management, or vice-versa).
Glad to see others love Imperator as much as I do!
Yeah! Definitely takes some time to learn, but feels all the more rewarding when you do, same with most PDX games
What happened to IR is a tragedy in my opinion. The devs put in a lot of effort to fix the game, and they were mostly successfully. Shame that the player base never returned.
Yeah I feel exactly the same way
At this day it's UI is basically shi***. The game still has very basic bugs, that can only be find in beta games, for example: the issue selecting a small province when it has an army on it (like the smallest provinces in Greece).
I love Paradox games, I love ancient times and I still play IR, but without any doubt, devs didn't put enough effort on it.
All I know is I'm a big big fan of the recent and massive upgrade paradox has done to their campaign maps in the last several games. IR looks great and CK3 looks absolutely gorgeous. It really makes the grand part of grand strategy actually feel grand. I just can't even bring myself to go back and try anything older now and I was a big fan of CK2 but those old frameworks just look hideous now and in a game type like they make where you're genuinely starting at maps and menus for hours, it makes the whole experience much more immersive.
Agreed! Although I will say CK2 does have its own genuine charm!
I've literally just turned ck2 on for first time in 4 years to play a fully fleshed out GOT mod.
The Map, Graphics, and importantly UI, are just heinous. It's aged awfully.
@tapewormlondon ya, EU4 is still hanging in there, it benefited from being somewhat of a new engine when it came out and it still looks ok, it would be nice if they moved onto 5 though but it of course would be a long grind getting to a fully fleshed out game like 4 is now.
@@TamaHawkLive I think most either forget, or were not there for what an amazing sequel EU4 was.
Kept most of the great expansions built into the new model and just built on 3. EU4 was superior in my opinion right out the gate. From day one. An amazing game, sequel and laid the foundations for a brilliant DLC set ti expand further.
Ck3 has been disappointing in that regard. The black death being a major feature in something that had it several years ago is frustrating
Btw Thx for highlighting the mod! I'm downloading now. Rome vs China is epicness waiting to happen. Silk road trade? JAPAN :O say no more!
RIGHT?! I hope you enjoy it!
Even abandoned it so much much better than Vic3 to me, at least I can move armies and have the best map in series
glad you enjoy TI! keep your eyes out for the next update, there are literally dozens of trees being added to asia
The empire management aspects of IR really don't get enough love. Founding cities, connecting them with roads, and having them specialize in different things (trade, military, culture, etc.) is always strangely rewarding. Combine that with mods that breathe life into the near entirety of the map via missions and events and you have a pretty darn addictive game!
exactly!
I feel like when during the Marius update the devs said that they considered what this game was supposed to be, compared to the other games and concluded it was a civilisation builder, they nailed it in the execution. The game takes a good bit from many other Paradox titles (CK3 character interaction and levies, EU4 great power management, Stellaris pop management), but puts it together in a blend that represents antiquity quite well, especially notions like how wars are fought (standing armies were an achievement and made countries like Rome special) or how political organisation improved.
As a CK3 girl who can only play as some form of Rome, I love Imperator. If it had a little more character focus it’s be my fav hands down. Playing rn
I wish Imperator had been given some more features, and if the characters were given some more love I definitely wouldn't mind it!
I have never stopped playing this game since release.
nice that people are finding it.
This is a fantastic video
Thank you so much! :)
I'm so glad this game is getting a revival. I've put a good 600 hours into it in the past year or so. There are so many cool historical details and interesting playstyles. Not to mention the immersive, and realistic the pop system and INCREDIBLE modding community. Hearing that the next Europa Universalis will have a similar pop system has gotten me very excited for the future of Paradox games
Thank you so much for featuring Indomita, a full map of Eurasia is exactly what I wanted for this game.
This is a game I want to love. I was stoked when it came out, bought it with the epirus skins or w.e. I had difficulty wrapping my head around the mechanics. I watched some videos and was learning but then lost interest.
You've convinced me to try again though. We'll see how this goes. 🤞
Ditto. Let’s go for it
I finally learned how to play it, and it's weird how it's more enjoyable now.
Strange how knowing how to play makes it more fun.
think they should've adopted some more of the ck3 rpg-like features but it's not a bad game.
While I don’t want a full on CK3, making things a bit more clear would’ve gone a long way, or indeed made things just a bit more personal, while not making the entire game about your family
Yeah, 1:56 I do think it lacks a lot on the character management possibily because of the focus on all things at the same time, they bite off more than they can chew. It would've been awesome that the game followed your dynasty, with civil war, coup d'Etat or even exiles don't turning into an instant game over (imagine being able to reconquer your own kingdom with foreign help), or in the case of the Republics I couldn't really get attached to any of my characters because they would end up being replaced by "Random Roman Politician Number 96". Imagine if you could control a Roman family and make them go from the lowest of the Cursus Honorum to the highest, or the other way around, being ""dethroned"" by a rival family and eventually get your revenge.
I don't think the game is bad, but it feels incomplete, and specially now that the devs abandoned it. Maybe a full rework or a new DLC would spice things a little and bring new players, but they would not gonna do it because they see I:R as a failure :(
I love imperator Rome!
Me too!
Thank you for not forgetting imperator.
Liking and engaging for the revival of imperator
I've always been a lover of Roman History--every, and any era. Just recently in my 30's, after working many years in a corporate environment, I got an "itch" to start playing Roman era PC games (games in general, really). Using Roman era mods, I started with the Total war games/mods, then tried CK 2/3 and found all of them to be really, REALLY fun games. ESPECIALLY Divide et Impera for Rome 2, and Ancient Empires for Attila.
So far, there hasn't been one Roman Era game that I've played that checks more boxes than Imperator: Rome with the mods Invictus, FMO, Tribal Legions, and Slave Raids for all. This combo IS the best Roman era PC game ever.
Because it offers an experience that no other paradox game does. In the terms of its mechanics and features. Having said that this game needs a lot of love. I firmly believe that it can yet be developed into the crown of Paradox irrespective of its age.
I think so too!
Despite them abandoning I:R, I still have more hours in it than in CK3. It's such a good game but it launched in a terrible state and when they finally started fixing things and making the game better they just decided to suddenly abandon it because people didn't instantly jump back to it.
Before they did that sh*t, I actually bought every DLC of the games I played and was overall happy with my purchases, despite problems with them at launch. I was happy with them because I figured they'd fix them over time and most of the annoyances would be temporary. I:R broke that trust, I no longer buy DLCs in the first couple days and sometimes I don't buy them at all despite being able to afford it.
I no longer support the company, now I buy after I can see somewhat reliable ratings and when I'm particularly interested in the content in that game/dlc.
It's not like I mindlessly bought everything before, but I certainly was more willing to show trust in them and spend money on them.
I've saved at least 50$ on other games/dlcs I'd just have bought for the sake of giving it a chance and knowing it might not be for me and that's a low estimate. I hope there are hundreds of thousands of other people who are just as mad at them, but I know that I'm probably a minority.
I still buy their games, because for anyone interested in this kind of game, they're almost the entire market. But if there'd been any real alternatives back when I:R was abandoned, they'd certainly lost me as a customer.
I love this game, saw this and i wanna play it again Even though dont have Time for it now 😢
Not sure I'd label some of those "features" as they come from mods, but good to see the game is getting some love.
Bro that thumbnail with you first conquering Iberia before Greece got me here. Then I saw you are also playing with Terra Indomita...Then I saw you are playing with Terrain map mode as well... 🥲 You are amazing. Followed and liked.
That makes me so happy! Bless you, brother 💪
Now that EU5 has been announced we can say IR was a test of some of the mechanics, the ultimate paradox game, combining 3/4 of the major titles
The visual design of the UI makes it hard for me to get into sometimes compared to the newer PDX games like CK3 and Vic3. Information feels a lot more clustered and hard to read, things are too packed together and get lost (the character windows in particular stand out to me as an outdated looking mess). CK3 and Vic3 have their own respective faults, but the modern visual design of their UI is something I hope Paradox keeps moving forward with all their games. That being said, I still enjoy Imperator 😅
Personally I think the UI design of imperator is better, reminds me of EU4, everything is right there rather than kinda being hidden behind screen-dominating windows
skill issue
Cool going to try this thanks
One day I'm just chilling and I'm like, hell I want to play as Bithynia on Invictus mod.
My current favourite mod for I:R is the one making the start date 600 BC
For some reason I just really enjoy playing in a simpler time, before the rise of Rome, when the Hellenistic world was in its golden age
Where can I find that mod?
I actually really enjoyed playing Imperator Rome. I have absolutely no idea why it died. 2.0 is fantastic and while I know that the Invictus mod is supposedly necessary, I have no idea what it fixes because it's already fantastic.
They left it because it had a very low player base, which sadly meant that working on new DLC might not have paid off… which is sad because making a better game might’ve gotten more players to come back or entirely new ones, but yeah
Andy be reviving Imperator lol
YOU KNOW IT
Glad to see a video made about this game, it's such a hidden gem nowadays. All the mechanics you mention are so great that when I play CK3 I really miss all the state management, culture, religion and how armies work that Imperator has.
I tried Imperator when it released and found out that the gameplay revolved around finding small state with many allies, occupy just first target and annex entire alliance. And other mechanics felt superflous. I heard there was massive update to all mechanics. Some of things you mention look very nice though there are some things that feel fishy... Maybe I should try it again... But I will prefer to test demo...
I just purchased imperator because of this video, paradox really should be paying you
Right when i escaped the Grand strategy grasps with helldivers 2 i get sucked right back in 😫
I’m sorry 😭
Inferior to the Allmighty March of the eagles
Imperator Rome was such a great concept of a game. I joined late, so I already had a good experience and got it with the expansions for cheap, but then it was just abandoned. I hope uses lesson learned from CK3's QoL, graphics and UI improvements compared to CK2
Totally agree , this game deserves to be revisited by PDX base. I wasn't playing during the launch, and looking at how it looked then vs now, I see how much it evolved for the better. I love PDX games, but they all take a lot of time to get over the hump to understand and enjoy, and this one I think actually makes a great gateway for many players as it introduces elements from the other games like CK, EU, HOI, VIC, but less in-depth of each of their strengths so when you play them, you already have familiarity with some of the base mechanics.
I think the game really shines through the pop management systems with culture, religion, and class all being unique factors. Integrating new populations or assimilating groups into your core cultural identities presents an interesting tradeoff as well.
Even though I was a Paradox gamer back in the days (lots of hours in EU III DW) Rome II absolutely monopolized my gaming time for the past 8 years or so.
I purchased this game on sale but barely played it for 1h, it happened the same with Stellaris. I can see they are great games, and that I'd probably enjoy them a lot, but I feel too old to learn such a plethora of mechanics.
I like to play Avernia. Forming Gaul while keeping one eye on the Romans. And i like building roads.
14:00 you need navies to transport troops? Thats revolutionary. As someone playing EU4 I would never think about this unique feature.
Roma Invicta! Bring Imperator Rome back...!!!
Say it again, brother!!
I personally think imperator is okay, I picked it up when 2.0 released and had some fun campaigns. However I did tend to find that it still very much fell into the map painting character in many respects. In my opinion, the game represents a jack of all trades whilst being a master of none of them. Still an interesting experiment and valuable in the sense that it got Paradox to really track back on releasing games in a terrible state.
i usually wouldn't play a game about a historical period that doesn't interest me in the slightest... but imperator is the only exception to that and i think that proves the game is pretty damn good
I like the close zoom ins, should be on the default game
This game had a lot of potential. But at launch it was disastrous because it was boring and people were sick of the mana system. Imperator Rome tried to combine Crusader Kings and Europa Universalis which threw a lot of people off. The game isn't bad now after numerous patches. A lot of features in IR are actually good like the automated army and battle tactics, and different units actually have an impact like heavy infantry will almost always beat light infantry. Also, I've always hated how EU4 restricted the amount of generals and admirals, so having characters that have those good traits like CK was a good feature.
I had actually forgotten about this game, and am now heading over to steam to see how much it’s going for in the sales. Paradox should definitely send you over some royalties 😅
I bought the game previous sale. Didn't play that much, started three weeks ago and now I am addicted. The learning curve was steep, and there aren't that many tutorials compared to ck3. The reason I like this game more is because I didn't like the inheritance system of CK3 (some say that's the game, fine, but I prefer a state system! Like Rome total War or imperator Rome or even koh2)
Yeah I get that! The inheritance system is definitely a point of stress in CK2/3 lol
For me its the best looking game from paradox,i start playing it again a few days ago
It’s gorgeous for sure
About your point on navies around 14 minutes in, yea one thing I hate about ck3 is the fact that you can just embark your army for a gold cost, I much prefer the old system from ck2 where you have to raise ships first, it was tedious sure but that could be solve by adding naval rally points like how ck3 added army rally points.
I agree with you, the game is fantastic. However, I’m spoiled by years and years of Total War battles. Every time I start a paradox game, I miss that aspect. Makes me wish I had played these games when I was much younger and before Total War grew on me. Maybe some day I’ll get sick of Total War, but I’m always going back…
same as me brother
A big problem for imperator was that it essentially had an identity crisis when it launched was it a family dynastic simulator like ck3 or nation building game like eu4 or was it an economic simulator like victoria 2? It tried to do a little bit of everything and was released way to early. The bones are still good and i do hold it against paradox for abandoning the game rather as soon as they finished the obligated ore order dlc.
True!
One of the Tennto talks was saying EU5 would have a pop system
Great geame. Has more-or-less everything I expect of strategy game. There are some things I do not like, but all-in-all one of the best I played in last 30 years.
Glory to Bythinia ! Conqueror of Europe asia and the levant ! Glory to Zipoteïs dynasty ! Playing invictus is so fun, bythinia tree is epic and i love starting surrounded by super major player and crafting my bythinian realm in the middle of the chaos of the successions wars. last campaign i'm in 612 and got 7k+ pop (with 3k+ bythinian converted) and 525+ territory.
Imperator:Rome and Victoria 3 are tied as my favourite Paradox Interactive games.
It's because other Paradox grand strategy games are only give very basic simulations of demographics and economies.
I honestly think the current version of Imperator is the best Paradox game. The only thing its missing is more flavor outside the Graeco-Roman world and some more time stamps.
i hope they continue the game cus it has so much potential its litterly ck3 + eu4 + victoria 2/3
Imperator Rome v.2.0 is an underrated Map painter game. Cheers to all the haters 😂🍻 they still declare the game as dead. It would me not suprise, if Paradox would release from nowhere a new DLC/Patch and flashing their Community again like they did with the announcement of Vic3 at the pdxcon. We all know how chilled and cool theses guys from Paradox are, that theoretically could be really happen for real 😂.
The Pop mechanics sound like Stellaris.
And if it only had battles like Total War, this game would had been the most played strategy game current date.
Paradox should contact and recruit the guy who created Manor Lord and Imperator: Rome 2, should have battles like TW.
The problem with Imperator Rome is that there is a hardcoded tag limit. If it is exceeded, the game crashes. In Terra Indomita it's even worse because there are more factions, so the limit is reached faster than in Vanilla. I think this is a fundamental design flaw in the game that robs it of its full potential.
I find the in-game politics very unique, like how rulers from the populares party can take over the country if they have enough support.
I think, for better or for worse, _Imperator_ was the last Paradox grand strategy game that took itself seriously. Since then Paradox seems to have leaned much more into a light-hearted, casual design philosophy with recent titles having more stylised graphics and streamlined mechanics which, for me at least, just makes them feel much less immersive/engaging when compared to their older titles.
Unmentioned feature: the levies raised are tied directly to citizen & noble pops in each province.
How it works: a province's levies are based on both the number of citizen & noble pops per province AND their culture. For example, if a culture (like the Central Indian ones) is 40% War Elephants & 60% Archers, and that culture is the only one with noble & citizen pops in the province, then youll get war elephants & archers equal to those percentages. BUT if you have a mixture of different integrated cultures, then the levy will be more mixed.
The size of the levy is also dependent on those numbers. So if you suddenly decide to integrate a large minority, suddenly you'll have many more troops at yohr disposal. But jf you strip tjem of their rights, youll lose those troops.
...conversely, if you dont bother to defend your core lands from invaders & let your main holdings be seized, as your pops die from their cities being sacked, so too does your max levy size shrink. So if you want to cripple an enemy, slaughter their major cities - youll shrink their future army by a third.
I did mention that armies were tied to pops, but thank you for the added depth :)
Small correction,as a monarchy you don't lose the game when a ruler from a different dynasty takes control,just a ton of stability,that would have been a cool feature to balance monarchic though as rn they are just stronger than republics
Oh right, thanks for the correction!
Imperator Rome is the absolute best
Glad someone knows the plot!
The tech system is also one of Paradox's best! There's so much freedom to specialize your nation in radically different ways.
this and victoria are my favourite pdx games
Imagine if paradox tried to mix more CK elements into IR it would be the best game of the whole series. I can also imagine if they added diseases where you see your city pops disappear from a large disease.
I must agree fully about your views on this. As far as military you need Iron for heavy troops. You need wood for ships and it just makes it far more strategic. I recall one of my play throughs as Judaea which I created a mod which allows the formation of Israel. I needed heavy troops really if I was going to push into Egypt and the Empires around me were crumbling so I took advantage and headed north taking everything I could until I had my iron source secured. I already at that point had my wood. So I decided since I had the iron needed I was going to take on Egypt. Well, I didn't realize, but the AI for Egypt does like Carthage and will go get a ton of mercenaries. It was a hard fought war and I had from Alexandria to just north of Syria that little bend in Anatolia next to Syria. I made it as east as the Euphrates and south as the north area of Arabia. It was one of my favorite campaigns. Judaea has a lot of issues with politics and families which civil wars are very easy to get at least for me anyhow. So I went with the King David style of killing off family members. If at war I put them in charge of an area and make sure they don't have many troops to purposely die. Which is another huge thing in the game. If your leader is commanding an army and that army is destroyed. That leader is now dead like Crusader Kings. It is a fast transition between rulers as the game makes you feel like well time to the next guy. Crusader Kings I never get through maybe 3 generations. Rome I get to the end and wish it were longer. Even though I played out about 500 years. I never play 500 years in most of the games. My attention span struggles at that point, but Imperator just keeps me locked in.
I also like this game.
And I especially like the part paradox won't add crazy updates which totally modifies the game.
If by any chance they do updates, I want them to consult with mod creators and plan updates.
How does Terra Indomita hold up to Invictus? I dont think I can play this game again without all the good stuff Invictus adds...
0:51 what mod is it? Subtitles isn't helping me out here ;-;
The pops mechanics are so Stellaris
11:00 that the armies get loyal to the generals and so on is something that would be amazing to see in Vicky3 in a way. Characters and Pops could have not just loyalty or not to the country, but have a loyalty they could be split between country, current government, a political ideology, a character, a party, etc. i.e. on pop has 100 loyalty points which are then divided between targets (including "none of the above". If an agitator has a high % of loyalty directed at them then if they changed party (or some such) then all their follower would tag along. etc etc.
Wouldn't be my top priority even for V3 politics changes, but it could be good (my top priority would be having real differences in electoral & parliamentary systems. Having the UK have a real House of Lords and First Past the Post house of Commons while the US has a senate, while a third country has a proportional representation unicameral parliament, etc, that would make for much more of a sense of every country being different when playing).
started playing this again two days ago
Let's be serious. We are all living in an advanced 4x game. It's not even a question at this point.
I love IR, but as a Roman lover I would prefer that you have a character instead of the state. It would be so satisfactory to raise the ranks in the roman empire, or to have a civil war to conquer the power of the state.
Would be cool, I’d be interested in seeing how they would make that game though
Looks pretty cool ngl. Hope they revive it
How this game manage pops and how you can grow tall i love it... we all are unlucky that Paradox cross the red line on his politics of gives the games empty to replenish later with DLC... sometimes is too much empty and thats the case with this game.
IR was a mid release but last year I played a whole bunch of it and had a fantastic time, people are sleeping on it and it's a huge shame.
Do not forget that IR had many gameplay trailers and fans of Paradox were screaming at them to not put in a mana system. Months upon months of screaming of no mana system and yet they did it. Only to patch it out after being released for months but then everybody already put the game aside. And it was also unbelievably bare bones at launch.
Yes it’s very sad, they definitely made a bunch of mistakes pre release
@@AndysParadox Yea very sad because I love the time period and Paradox making a grand strategy about it was a dream come true. I still like the game but it's so sad that Paradox will never really expand on it.
Great video, I love this game.
Thank you so much!
Any good tutorials on this my fellow friends of culture?
I’ve considered making one, but sadly that takes a lot of time, and I don’t know if I will find it, and I don’t know if it will be of relative value in terms of viewer interest :( I’m sure there’s something out there though!
The game sucks, I know its tough to say and that lacks nuance, but it does. When the 2.0 drop landed in February, players spiked to 7000 concurrents, and within a couple weeks fell back to below 1000. It's always had "potential" but you can't expect people to actively engage or play with something while they wait for Paradox to fix it over and over again. The game was out for 2 years at that point and had 6 major updates plus DLCs. For me personally the game was trending in the right direction until 1.4. That really upset the game for me, and 1.5 basically killed it. 2.0 was not at all the direction I wanted so I stopped playing.
I appreciate any take on the game, and people trying to revitalize it. It'd be great if that happened, but I think its bizarre to assume this gem of a game exists and nobody knows about it. Twenty to thirty thousand people played the 2.0 update and they bounced off it very fast. There's many good reasons for that;
Mana still rules major decisions. Loyalty flips on a dime for absurd reasons that are anti-thetical to human behaviour, this happens after a rework where it was actually quite good (not perfect).
The rework for republics went from a five party system with intricate backing based on your play to instead a three party system with a homogenized approval rating for all decisions. No substantial differentiation between nations, everything is a modifier; all troops are the exact same its just "5% discipline" for Roman and "+1defense" for Greek. There's no hoplites, or phalanx formations or fighting styles or equipment. Instead, elephants have 1000 in the unit, as does heavy infantry, as does everything. All buildings are the same for everyone, and you don't need any resources to build something special or recruit special units or anything like that. I could go on. The game lacks a soul to me, lacks real character. It could be set in any timeframe before gunpowder really and still work the exact same.
I know the game is not perfect but straight up saying "it sucks" its a bit too much. I think its a mediocre game at worst and a decent game at best(personally i enjoy it a lot but im trying to be objective)
This is a stupid comment.
First, loyalty "flipping on a dime" is not a bad thing, and pretty characteristic of powerful generals historically anyways. If a character has an event where the player assassinates their family, of course loyalty with flip. It sounds to me like you're bad at the game.
Second, how does mana rule the game? Political influence for example, a real mana, isn't ruling major decisions, only minor ones such as adding a new city. If you are mad at Imperator for having +5% xyz, then you should hate all Paradox games, because it is the system that influences all of their games at its core. And of course all buildings are the same, you are nit-picking. How much flavor do you want? Also, you do need certain resources to build special ships, such as wood. But these are all extra content that does not drastically change the game fundamentally. If you just hate Rome, go back to playing Anno 1800, which in comparison to Imperator Rome is pitifully lacking any "depth", or whatever that means.
@@callumander4141i unfortunately dont have time to adress you compeltely, but my channel that focused on the game is called Republic of Play. I reviewed each patch that came out for the game and gave up on it at 1.5. The videos did quite well, and I put 100hrs into each patch desconstructing the changes analytically.
I left the game with a wishlist of things in that final review I think could help, but didnt want to be negative and felt the game was going in a direction that made it worse after 1.3. The loyalty change made the game super easy, that was a critique of it. Previous to the change loyalty worsened or bettered over time, so you couldnt click a button to stop a civil war.
No need to be so defensive and I never said Anno has more depth than Imperator. For the most part my fav pdx games are CK and Stellaris. I dunno or care which has more depth.
im thinking about getting this game but still on the fence. if i decide to get it, should i immediately start with the mentioned overhaul mods or is tthe vanilla experience good too, especially as a beginner? i did play ck3 and hoi4
Invictus is the only essential mod
So, if I were to give this game another shot which nation be good to start learning the game with as a beginner?
This is a great game. More ppl should play it now.