![]() That adds a really fun element of scheming and politicking to keep you busy when your legions aren’t on the march. In the Roman Republic, each Consul you take control of will have to gather support for war declarations, law changes, and other actions in the Senate by courting its five factions. The strategic and tactical depth makes it hard for me to go back to a game like EU4, and all of this map detail looks gorgeous whether you’re marching across the pastoral plains of Italy or over the rugged Himalayas. This approach to keeping some regions balkanized adds to the immersiveness of the world without making you feel like you’re missing out on anything. Some areas of the map will remain unconquered well into the late game for the same reasons they did in history: it’s simply not worth it to undertake such a major logistical nightmare for so little reward. Similarly, the Nile region is modeled as the ancients would have seen it: a narrow highway along the banks of the great river, surrounded on all sides by expansive desert where only death awaits. Fighting across the Alps involves a frigid slog through narrow passes that’re just begging to be the scene of a brutal ambush or desperate last stand. The map also lends itself to interesting warfare, with a density of traversable terrain far above and beyond most other grand strategy games. It's tactically interesting and rewards observation and planning, rather than settling with a lame, guess-based rock-paper-scissors system. If you see a lot of light infantry on the march, they’re probably not going to use shock tactics, and those Scythians and their horse archers are potent but predictable. Their effectiveness is determined by the troop types in an army, so you can tell what tactics an opponent is most likely to use by scouting out how their forces are composed. In addition to a plethora of troop types that ranges from infantry to chariots to mounted camels and elephants, each army has access to a set of stances that can counter or be countered by others. Imperator treats you to one of the most involved and interesting combat systems I’ve seen in the genre.Once you do get up to speed, though, Imperator treats you to one of the most involved and interesting combat systems I’ve seen in a genre that’s usually dominated by crashing giant balls of infantry into each other with winning or losing based on who can bring the greatest numbers to bear. It also only covers playing as a republic, leaving you to your own devices when it comes to tribes and monarchies. The in-game tutorial leaves out some key information, coming across kind of like a driver’s ed course that teaches you what all the pedals, knobs, and switches in the cab do but not how to parallel park or merge onto a highway. In Imperator, it’s a weak point instead.Īnd this trip to the ancient past doesn’t seem especially interested in holding your hand as you learn the ropes, either. When I reviewed EU4, the interface got some of my highest praise. ![]() Some info doesn’t seem to be visible at all, like the scaled effects of constructing a building in a specific city. Too much important stuff is buried deep in easy-to-miss menus, like the factors that determine whether or not the Senate will approve a declaration of war. I was particularly frustrated at the lack of a ledger – a feature of most other Paradox games that gives you access to a lot of info about the world at a glance. Overall, Imperator gives you much more to manage than EU4 and far fewer tools to do it with.
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