Recent Reviews

[Agent]

I've had Imperator wishlisted for quite a while now but the "Mixed" All Reviews (which are usually a red flag) along with people stating that it was basically abandoned made me too wary to pull the trigger. However with the sale today I see that the "Recent" Reviews are like 94% positive with a sample size of hundreds.

Can someone explain why this is, I'm interested in the game but I've never seen something like that happen so I'm worried it's a trap.

[Power of Yoghurt]

Recent update patched a lot of bugs, among other things.

[verneythehunter]

Hey Agent. Id be worried too were I in your shoes. Happily though, I confirm that there's no trap. Imperator had a very rocky start on launch, which led to the mixed reviews you saw. A lot of faith was lost as there was a serious lack of flavour, mechanics etc. Paradox then started releasing DLC and patches to address many of the issues raised by the community, but by then it was difficult to bring players back. This all changed with 2.0 update, however and the work of modders, namely the Invictus team. Patch 2.0 made Imperator an amazing game, but in a move I doubt I will ever understand, Paradox decided to abandon the game right after its release, just as the ship was turning. Subsequent updates to Invictus kept the game alive, and today it is one of the best paradox titles imo...which has led to the recent surge in positive reviews. The 2.0 update + Invictus duo was so good it also inspired creators to recently release videos praising the game, which led to good PR and even more good reviews. Paradox took notice and decided to cash in on the wave in the hopes of increasing player count to a high enough level to continue development (I hope, could be a naked cash grab), hence the recent discounts on base game and DLCs. I rate give it a shot while its on sale...play it with Invictus, and better UI. Ill also plug my own mods (checkout my workshop) for the peak experience...its a good if not amazing game now. Im sure you'll find something in there to enjoy!

[Turncloak]

I imagine a lot of those mixed reviews are from when the game first released, it's an excellent game.

[Agent]

Thanks for the replies, guys. Since it's on big sale I'll give it a shot and check out the Invictus mod (and potentially others as you suggest, once I get a feel for the game.)

[Rialm]

Originally posted by Agent:

Can someone explain why this is, I'm interested in the game but I've never seen something like that happen so I'm worried it's a trap.

Easy, 1.0 was not good, so then Paradox decided to fix it, they released 2.0 and it got really good reviews with the DLC Heirs. but we were so few and Leviathan incident so Paradox decided to shelve it. So people decided to review bombing as if magically that will fix anything.
For the pass years some fans have been doing mods specially Invictus. A few months ago some streamers and fans started to talking again about this game. I'm glad.

[Agent]

Would y'all recommend playing with Invictus right from the start, or familiarizing oneself with the vanilla game first? Assume familiarity with the general playstyle of Paradox games like EU or CK.

[Cap'n Morgan]

Invictus essentially just builds on/improves the base game, so there's no reason not to just start with it over vanilla. I played with it from the start (accidentally, as I didn't realise "subscribe" is Steam's codeword for "install mod") and didn't figure out it wasn't vanilla until I noticed I had Invictus map content, so it definitely "felt" like the base game itself.

Other mods make greater changes to the game, so playing vanilla or Invictus first is probably best in those cases.

[Sanny]

Buy the game, help restore the glory of Rome!

[Agent]

Ave, True to Caesar!

Wait, wrong game...

[Niroc]

As a returning player myself who bought the game on first launch, played for the first six months then lost interest, I would highly recommend giving the game a go. The complaints about pre 2.0 imperator are all addressed either by the 2.0 patch it's self or by mods. I personally instilled Invictus and a sweet of other mods right off the bat.

To give a brief summary:
-The game is no longer reliant on three types of mana, this has been reduced to a single political power mana while everything else costs either money, aggressive expansion or Tyranny, the latter two having serious consequences if allowed to balloon out of control.

-You are no longer mindlessly building units from the ground up, instead you have levies which are pulled from your population with the composition depending on the make up of the region the pops are levied from. You then can later raise legions which are more professional but expensive and at the further cost of being unable to raise a levy force once a region has raised a legion.

-The A.I, espically with mods like Invictus is ruthless and actually cunning, I would put it up there with some of the best paradox A.I I have seen. For example as Epirus I formed a empire to rival Rome in the east going up towards modern day Ukraine and Poland, only for my AE and tyranny to get out of hand and for my empire to start suffering from internal revolts and a civil war, Rome, the Selecuids and Egypt all pounced on me within a few years of each other ending my empire less then a century after it started.

So all in all, a very good grand strat game challenging my current 1st place Stellaris as my go to paradox game.

[Biggus Diggus]

I have almost 400 hours in this game. It is a very unique game. It had an awful launch and it still has some problems, like it wants to be EU4 but it also wants be CK2.

It has a skyrim mod, a lord of the rings mod, and a bronze age mod. I love playing this game from time to time. The only reason why I did not play it is because paradox abandoned it and I do not like playing dead games as it makes me sad.

[LionZ]

It's a long story but we've been abandoned and it's one of if not the best PARADOX game in this genre and now it's getting some love. Not a trap, just a long story

[John from Texas Oblast]

Imperator Rome is a successor to Europa Universalis: Rome.
But actually it doesn't feel much like a successor, it's more like a remake or final build of EUR.
The release version was disorganized and had a poor UI. The 2.0 version fixed a lot of complaints from release but was unceremoniously shelved while PDX was making other games.
This game is mechanically similar to Crusader Kings 2 with some mechanics of Stellaris. Surprisingly it's handled very well even if the UI is still obtuse.
The main Major Powers at game start are pretty refined in terms of content. I would say atleast half of the playable countries in the game have different enough content to warrant several playthroughs.

[jomigaru]

Originally posted by Agent:

Ave, True to Caesar!

Wait, wrong game...

Your doubts about purchasing this game almost make me wish for a nuclear winter.
Go for it on a sale, fellow wastelander, you will like it. And yes, Invictus form the beginning is my advice.

[Gabi]

Originally posted by Agent:

I've had Imperator wishlisted for quite a while now but the "Mixed" All Reviews (which are usually a red flag) along with people stating that it was basically abandoned made me too wary to pull the trigger. However with the sale today I see that the "Recent" Reviews are like 94% positive with a sample size of hundreds.

Can someone explain why this is, I'm interested in the game but I've never seen something like that happen so I'm worried it's a trap.

The core game of 1.0 was bad, the 2.0 update was basically a sequel patched in but had some bugs that I never found to major, but still annoying when they showed up, and needed fixing which seems to have happened now. If the game launched like it is now, people would likely have stuck around and enjoyed it, alas they released a version that really needed more work on its fundamental core design and it has never been able to shake of the negativity that poor release state has resulted in.