I have thought about purchasing Hegemony but reviews of it being very very difficult and micro intensive (as you need to micro too many things) have put me off. Is there much truth to it? How is it lets say in a comparison with Imperator (in regards to the micro)?
The game requires you to primarily manage supply chains (as literal node connections between points on the map) and units moving on the map. I can see why nodes would be micro but it's easy to pause, set everything up and unpause and once you've optimized a region, you can safely never touch it again unless you want to.
The units are another question. I find it encourages me to only fight 1 front wars, because you need to babysit every unit, so paying attention to two fronts is nigh-on-impossible, for me at least. It's to the point where you have to select specific units to attack specific enemy units.
That said, the actual micro is very easy once you know what to do. Infantry form a line and hold an area for the enemy to run into. The micro is to make sure they are facing the right way at the right time, as otherwise the enemy gets a flanking penalty. Ranged units just need to be in range and fire on their own, so it's just making sure the enemy will go within their range circle. Cavalry is only useful to scout, raid or flank, so it needs the most micro, but I keep it back until the infantry is engaged and then micro the cavalry to easy wins.
I think the difficulty is because unlike other games, the game does raiding very well, which players can find annoying. Whether by land or sea, the AI will send forces at random intervals even into your rear, if it's unprotected enough, just to reduce your production and possibly destroy some nodes. You have to either garrison everything to discourage them, expand to put the raiders out of range or my preferred method, have regional garrisons (of fast units) that can sally out and respond to wherever the raiders appear.
An actual key weakness of the game is that there's barely any diplomacy, but there are mods that expand the options at least.
Overall, I'd recommend Hegemony III hands down, but get the Eagle King DLC to expand the map to Sicily, get naval mechanics and the 'adventurer' mode where you start with an army only.
