I wouldn't use EU:Rome as indicator. It was mostly a EU clone. This on the other hand is a fully independent game.
Well an EU: Clone I'm not sure, at the time the marketing of paradox was different so they simply used the most famous name they had for the game. But from what I remember it was a game with a lot of unique mechanics. Senate, Characters, totally different trade routes, tribes government, monarchy government, colonization with some type of Pops, barbarian that can settle and choose to form a nation, and so on. Look at the features of the two games in the steam page:
Imperator: Rome’s features include:
- Character Management: A living world of characters with varying skills and traits that will change over time. They will lead your nation, govern your provinces and command your armies and fleets. We also introduce our new, more human-like character art.
- Diverse Populations: Citizens, freemen, tribesmen and slaves - each population with its own culture and religion. Whether they fill your armies, fill your coffers or fill your colonies, keep an eye on their happiness - your success depends on their satisfaction.
- Battle Tactics: Choose your approach before battle to counter the stratagems of your foes.
- Military Traditions: Each culture has a unique way of waging war. Romans and Celts have different options available to them. Unlock unique bonuses, abilities and units.
- Different Government Types: Manage the senate in a Republic, hold your court together in a monarchy, answer to the clans in a tribal system.
- Barbarians and Rebellions: Migrating barbarians may sack or settle your best land, while disloyal governors or generals can turn against you - taking their armies with them!
- Trade: Goods provide bonuses to their home province. Will you take advantage of stockpiles for local strength or trade excess goods to spread the wealth around?
- Provincial Improvement: Invest in buildings, roads and defences to make your kingdom stronger and richer.
If you remove the name of the game, everyone who played EU: Rome Gold could not find a reason to think it's a different game, all these feature are in EU: Rome Gold as described. (minus the battle tactics maybe, I don't remember)
Europa Universalis: Rome - Gold
KEY FEATURES
- Fully 3D map with integrated graphics and detailed topography
- Start at any date between 280 B.C. and 27 B.C.
- Choose between 10 different cultures, including the Roman, Celtic, Greek and Egyptian civilizations, with more than 53 playable factions on a map spanning hundreds of provinces.
- Watch your characters develop new traits through political intrigue and various interactions with thousands of other characters.
- Trade, negotiate or fight with your neighbours and advance your technologies to unite the Mediterranean World.
- Robust multiplayer allows you to challenge up to 32 players either competitively or in co-op mode.
NEW KEY FEATURES IN VAE VICTIS
- Completely revised military AI, particularly in the area of military campaigns
- Dynamics of the characters that live in the Republic will come to life as the men and women have their own personal goals and agendas
- As a republic you will now need to take the Senate into the account. Characters will belong to various parties depending on their goals, values, and ambitions
- Monarchies and Tribes will have their own courts, beware of bootlickers and sycophants who will stop at nothing to replace your divinely appointed ruler
Barbarians and populations are not listed, but you can simply open the game to see these things are in EU: Rome, coherent with how are described in Imperator: Rome. This is valid also for trade, the trade in EU: Rome was very similar to how it is described in Imperator: Rome. To conclude we can say that the featured listed about Imperator: Rome actually are discribing Europa Universalis: Rome - Gold, better than the steam page of EU Rome itself.
After playing EU: Rome years ago, reading the features of this new game it's a true deja vu. Many things are somewhat the same, and this is a good thing, because the ideas in EU: Rome were great but not really supported, instead this will be a proper great project with expanded funds, ideas and items from the devs. EU: Rome was a game full of good ideas, it's great that we finally can play the polished version. However, like you I hope that this will be more than EU: Rome 2018, but an expandend game with more depth in same mechanics, and new mechanics were they lacked in EU: Rome. The map of example it's gorgeus, even for the standard of other paradox games, a good start.
