I wish Paradox would return to this game, it’s incredible!

One thing that's worth mentioning is how the province and territory management system is a rather satisfying "gardening" experience that can be very visually pleasing as you found and grow cities exactly where you want them.

IR easily has the best soundtrack of any PDX game. I still find myself humming some of the tracks to myself years later

Arheo (Peter) should have been the head of Imperator from the start. I'm glad that he's heading HOI4 atm, but man he did a hell of job on Imperator.

I feel like Imperator will become a Victoria 2 of his times

I personally think Imperator Rome is a great game but I needs a better ui and hud to engage new players to the game as most people would look at it and see all those numbers and figures and not have a clue what to do. Also great video dude!

I played it on release for like one hour, stopped. Didn't like it. I picked it up almsot exactly one year later. Started as Rome. Played to the end date over the course of several days. That playthrough is one of the most memorable gaming experiences I had. Probably because of the gameplay actually capturing the events from that time. I fought several Punic wars, just like the Romans did in reality. And I was the underdog. The first one I was the defender, barely fighting them off on the south of the italian mainland and actually only barely "winning", having bled their manpower dry slightly faster than they did mine. My navies stayed in ports, because I was hopelessly outclassed on the water. The second war, I was more their equal. I still could not match them head on on water, but if they split off naval forces I could beat them. This time, on land, I pushed into Sicily and managed to take the entire island in fierce fighting and in the last weeks of the war managed to land a legion on Africa and take a province right next to Carthage. I think I actually had to not take all of Sicily in the peace deal to take that province, but it was worth it. The Third Punic War broke the Carthaginians for good. I took all their heartlands quickly, using my foothold on Africa, right next to their capital as a foothold. After that war only their coastal provinces to the south and west were left, their navy broken, their status relegated to an ordinary power. Because of how in some ways it aligned with how the real events played out in history, this is so memorable for me. And because of the scale of the wars and how it slowly turned in my favour. There was much more in that playthrough that made it memorable to me, like how I managed to abolish the Republic and turn into an Empire. But it paled in comparison to the Punic Wars, especially because the first one was a fight for survival.

It's the first PDX game that got my interest (Total War player here) because of the period, I couldn't figure it out and stopped, but since trying Stellaris I have been able to understand it better and give it a go again. Lastly, Roma Invicta.

Yes, this game is great potential burried by lackluster release. Also, among the modes for this game two other should be mentioned: 1) Bronze age. About, you've geussed it, the Bronze age period (yes, the same mod exists for CK3, but IMO Imperator's trade, pops' cultures and army reforms mechanics fit the era much better than CK's character-driven RPG) 2) Imperator: Invictus. An expansion of nation's mission trees, cultures, AI, Laws, and more. In short it's a couple of Paradox DLCs worth of work done by modders and avaliable for free 😁

God I miss Imperator Rome. By 2.0 it was one of the best Paradox games.

There once was a dream, that was called Imperator

This is my fav historical setting and I’m a CK 3 girl that loves Imperator. If it had a slightly more character focus then it’d be my favorite

There needs to be guides. People stop playing because they don't understand the game or it seems complicated to them. I started actively working with the CIS community on popularization of "Emperor of Rome", and from experience I can tell you that the main problem turned out to be player education. Great video!

May be one to finally pick up… great video!

The game is actually good. The problem is that has almost zero quality of life and support like no shortcuts and lots of frustrating useless modifiers, while some necessary actions do not exist. The fact that there are few things to do at peace compared to EU4 and the absolute lack of playthrough variety (only one starting date that always turns into a battle royale between 5 or 6 nations) makes the game quite boring and predictable if compared with other paradox titles. If developers update it again and add some QoL fixes and more dates to play as some of the most iconic leaders of Antiquity like Caesar or Hannibal, the game could match CK or EU.

Awesome video with some great explanations!

Pro tip: Use the character finder to recruit Geniuses and Polymaths from other nations. Then set them to do research. They will occasionally discover a completely free tech and can do so multiple times.

i'm glad people are finally waking up to this game, i've been playing it constantly since 2.0

So much potential. Loved playing the Antigonids

Imperator Rome is the most underrated game. I still hope they'd just release it as 7-Day free to play bundled with the awsome Imperator Invictus Mod and see if people are interested in it.

Started playing again.... using the invictus mod. It's really fun and so many options in how you want to play.

I hope succes for you and your channel❤

Best music and visuals, there are still some game mechanics that, to me, do not work well like the civil wars and trade . But the way monarchies and tribes develop is nearly perfect. The mission trees are helpful in kickstarting campaigns, but don't make the games feel ruled by them. But the tribes are where I appreciate things the most, taking the Lusitanians and Vesonti and turning them into kingdoms powerful enought to stave off the Romans and Carthaginians to the empires of Gaul and Iberia where I wipe them off the map. Lot of fun

Yeah, I remember that. The failed launch, the arguments about mana, UI etc., followed by 2.0 where I went "NOW we're talking!" and played the hell out of it for only God knows how long, followed by er... "we're not doing anything with it anymore, let's do some more HoI4 (any resemblance to actual historical events completely unintended, let's ally China to Colombia and conquer the world in 1939)"... Well, that's what happens when studios go public. They don't own their company anymore, the share holders do, and the incredibly talented dev teams are now hired help. Share holders want you to make casual Candy Crush-alikes forever? Guess that's what you'll be doing forever now.

Thank god ck3 is finally getting somewhere. I was worried it wouldn’t stay around.

Forming Parthia in Imperator is some of the most fun I've ever had in a computer game.

Ive always wanted to try it but never knew if id like it and at the time i was not as good at paradox games (im still not now) but im gonna have to get this at some point

man referenced Avatar TLAB and LOTR respect😁

This should be on your main channel

Game is Amazing, it first confused me but now I am a regular player. OFC since it lacked tutorials, i decided to play with the files to change a bit of it. XD

Its the best game paradox has made in my opinion and still has so much potential.

You cannot imagine how excited I was about this game. Before its release, I was a big fan of CK2, EUIV, and Vic2. And it looked like this game aimed at combining all the best parts of said games (RPG, State, Pops) together... and for whatever reason it didn't work out. The disappointment still resonates deep somewhere inside me. That being said I still have it on my to-do list to do a proper dive into this game... just couldn't find time yet.

I think this game could be significantly better and actually very profitable with just a bit more effort. It's like they're 90-95% on the path towards a great game and then quit in early access. In my eyes it needs AI/difficulty rework to make wars feel dangerous (right now only thing i consider is what land I want, not who I have to take it from), and it needs a few more events for variety. That's it.

I cant agree with you more. If paradox had launched with Imperator 2.0 then this would be played so much more, but 2.0 is good on its own.

Modders of Terra Dominatus added eastern asia, some major civilization like China (warring states), Khmer (south east asia), Yue (south china), Japan, Korea, central asia nomadic (Xiongnu, Parnia), ... make the map almost complete showing all ancient and classical civilizations, and clash between east vs west powers is incredible.

Long live the glory of Imperator

I love CK3, but this was my favorite. It was such a good game after 2 years. Its a shame the launch was so bad.

Do the Hellenic kingdoms have ways of attracting Greeks to fight in their armies? That wind be so cool if so

I take a good grand strategy game about the antiquity over wwii, eu4 and Stellaris any day. It's a real shame how the game was treated at launch. Thank the gods for great modders that have finally made the game how it was suppose to be played.

had no idea this game existed until i head modder snowlet was modding this game

Hey Andy, I see the goods with a surplus are highlighted. What mod is this?

I want these systems in a eu game. Maybe dont change the trade system in eu as it is very fitting for its period. But i love the systems from IR for real just missing the early modern spicyness and how important the geo political aspect is in eu

I would love it so much to play it but as long as I can´t remove roads I dont like my ocd simply won´t allow me. :(

Paradox! Please listen to me and make a DLC which will improve barbarians and make their gameplay more specific and diverse. PLEASE! Game is awesome and does not deserve to be abandoned like this.

I still play all the time with mods tho

All I can say is we need a new DLC to make this the best game ever rivaling HOI but even more historical

This game is the paradox game I have played the 2. Most (EU4 has first place). It’s really good and with the mod that adds more stuff, even better. I’m sad they stopped the game, could have been the best paradox title, but they sadly F’ed up the release.

Amazing.

Amazing they Shelved their best game. With some tweeks it will be a monster and make a Version for the imperial and post imperial period using the same base. Paradox wake up And make Some Money.

Nice avatar reference 😂

I honestly dont mind that this game is no longer being supported. It's nice to play a beautiful PDX game that is actually "complete", and not having to worry about the temptation of a new DLC every 6 months. I am only a man, and can never seem to say no to those. 😞 I do love this game though and though there are a few things here and there that could be improved, if it remains "dead" to PDX in its current state i would not complain

IR has the best map design by far in my honest opinion.

I remember the travesty that was the EU4 style mana system the game had at launch.

Play this game now, were increasing numbers, now, up to 1500 concurrent now at the highs.

It is too bad, I liked the feel of IR, it was blan to be sure, but it looked good and had a good feel to the game.

I played a run recently and overall systems and mechanics are good but I felt that there was no real goal or purpose to play the game. I played an hellenic city in Crimae, build some fortifications and develop my capital with trade and buildings and that's it. Characters and event are meh.. All become very repetitive, there is so many characters, each of them are irrevelant. Legion and levies are interesting mechanics but fall flat. All unpassable mountains could have lead to interesting warfare but warfare is crap.. Millions of mercs and units rushing at you everywhere.. There is zero decisive battle. The good part is that you can put your armies in auto mode. Imperator Rome good part are : build road, concentrate people in mega cities, enjoy the gorgeous map Bad part : no real goal, warfare is such a pain, diplomacy is braindead so you just just conquer conquer conquer and get bored

Even after grasping all PDX games, IR is too complex for its too obscure UI (formations, army strength, army composition). Late game armies are equal, diplomacy / spying is too lacking, tech and missions are mess to read / plan.

Terra indomita is THE way to play the game, and its not close. The game is PDX's shame for staying on the shelf. A solid 8/10

I love this game

Its.. SPQR Time!

The mistake was launching it as a DLC project, especially when people would throw 30+ hours into their first game only to find out on round 2 that the nations were all basically the same... If we saw how bad it was right away the anger would not be so great.

Vic 3 feels like Imperator at release and since - like, it's good it IS getting updates and stuff, but literally the game was unfinished at release, feels like Paradox didn't really even consider how well the game runs given we're still waiting on optimization and stuff with coming 1.6 update. Milstuff was plain just not finished when game launched and they tried to pass the broken frontline system off as a feature. Now they have slight military control and the pathfinding is broken, etc. I legit think Covid ruined their dev cycle and game wasn't complete at launch, and we're left to wait for things to be patched and balanced in. It seems like they arent going to abandon it like Imperator, at least, but who knows, maybe when they hit 2.0 they'll just dip out too haha.

It’s one of the best Paradox games, especially because there are no further DLCs or updates. So the modders have there undisturbed playground.

There isn't much left for them to do, clean up some of the cultural tech, rather than everyone having Roman tech trees and a some work on the tribal/clan nations and it would be pretty much perfect

Terra indomita

it's a shame that they abandoned it before reworking the barbaric nations, i think some of the game mechanics make it too unfair for them.

Big reason people didn’t play it as well its was very complex and scared people off. Information overload

I remember when I played it and it wa slike 20-30 armies just swarming around in my kingdom. Then I said no I had it this is shit and went back to Stellaris and never looked back. Wasn't a surprise is flopped. But maybe I should try it again then if they fixed it. After all paid full price for it

Honestly, after the updates the only system that I think isn't well developed in this game is trade.

Put the imperator team back to Work.

Honestly, I wish imperator had a start date based around caeser. With events covering his rise in the gaullic campaigns moving on to the cleopatra affair and civil war against the senate. Before his death and the final war for rome. I think it could provide a lot of unique characters to play like brutus, vercingetorix, cleopatra, or pompey. Not to mention, it would provide more of a focus to areas like egypt and gaul.

"Too good now" as if to imply that it's changed even though it hasn't received any update at all because Paradox stopped supporting it. Misleading title.

If only it had better combat.

As underdeveloped as IR is, I still prefer a game that’s one and done as opposed to the infinite DLC 💩 model.

I was excited for Victoria 3. When it was released it was bad and still is bad compared to Victoria 2 when it comes to historical immersion. I rather them abandoned Victoria 3 and return to Imperator Rome which I enjoyed a lot more than Victoria 3.

Why are the Romans Hellenic?

Something is not right. Why is this game abandoned, if it is so ingenious?!

I have no time to.learn.the game so I will stay at vicky 2 😅

I beg to differ (regarding the title obviously) good idea, bad execution, plus not enough content.

Real talk here. If the game really is that incredible, people would play it. Imperator rome steam charts is a ghost town. Fans need to stop blaming players as if it was the players fault why the game was abandoned. Its ultimately the devs and publishers fault for not launching a game that is deserved to be played in the first place. This clearly shows the publishers behavior towards the fans, paradox doesnt see you IR fans are worth the investment. Hence why they stopped development.

I still think the biggest mistake was not making it a character focused game like CK

Lost potential for real 😢

War end system is flawed.

jeez this game is so complex! non playable for me

Good game but redo economy and tweek politics. War is great

I dont understand why you would push a game when not finished. There is no 2nd chance after release, also PDX just repeated its mistake with vic3. There is really no good reason, other then burn it a go for a quick money grab.

more PARADOX abandonware

I blame Johan.He is just so obnoxious and arogant. Ruined what he could.

is this video a joke, ur funny

Sponsored by Paradox

First make Ukrainian localization, than we’ll talk.

It still sucks