What's your favourite unconventional country to play and why?

[Will Steel]

Knossos -> Crete is one I've enjoyed since the beginning. If it was a fictional fantasy, I'd give it some fun mythology-based heritage. In my last game I got lucky and managed to capture Cyprus and Pamphylia from fallen Antigonids - enough to conquer Sparta and rest of Achaea with.

Heraclea Pontica was fun although I've only tried one game since the nerf in the latest patch. Playing the last Achaemenid imperial remnant, surrounded by huge empires and kingdoms on every side, is very interesting even if I inevitably lose and get annexed.

Although I find tribes boring right now (lack of mechanics and content mostly), I've tried playing these since 2.0 was released -

- Parni - you are on a time limit to conquer rival nomads and unite central Asia, before Seleucids and Bactrians inevitably march on you. Forming historical Parthia is outside my skill level, but I had one game where second Mauryan-Seleucid War happened and I managed to get a lot of land in that chaos.
- Scordisci and Boii - because if you unite your region, you are able to invade Greece and Italy respectively. Very tough, but also very fun for a short rampage-style game.
- Vascones and Iceni - because everyone around is larger than you, so forming alliances and confederations and fighting mini world-wars is fun.
- Caledonii and Bohemia - been playing these since the beginning because they're mostly isolated and can expand via colonization.

I'd also list Getae but I think they're kinda mainstream now.

I am waiting for the next patch because holy site pop movement bug is killing certain smaller nations I wanted to play.

 

[TheWorstPro]

I've got to say, there's something special about migratory tribes that makes each run feel completely unique and different. For instance,

Spoiler: Early Arrival

And then of course, there's the endless horde strategy which lets you infinitely snowball and wipe entire civilizations off the map at the cost of your CPU, but that deserves its own thread.

Spoiler: sneak peek

 

[AggaWackTan]

Nice thread.

Massalia, it’s probably kind of main stream and not the hardest but still start small and have to think how to expand.

I think they’re mission tree is the best and actually feels like a long term plan unlike a lot of other nations very specific requirements. The mission tree is essentially a campaign, expand to the pillars of Hercules, regain domination of the Massalian coast, retake Aleria and Sardinia, retake Greek colonies in Iberia.

I find the new tech tree makes it really fun, take civic for the free pops to grow your levy in Massalia, city founding discount, building discounts and political influence bonuses and you’ll be taking small chunks of land around Iberia with your fleet and founding new Greek cities again. I really engage with the new league city subject type here and you’ll have no problems with money either.

 

[EricMN93]

One of my hobbies within Imperator is playing with "forgotten" civilizations. The intention is to play one of these civilizations with each patch.


The first game (patch 1.5) was with the Kingdom of Saba in the area of Arabia Felix and Punt.

Other games I have in mind:

Sogdia and the Kushan Empire.

Scythia.

Gallic and Galatia tribe.

Rebirth of a dead empire, I am still wondering whether to try to restore the Assyrian empire or the Babylonian empire.

Tyros and Phenicia

 

[AggaWackTan]

I think generally the game benefits when you force yourself to slow down and pay careful attention rather than speeding along at speed 5. It did highlight though that tribes aren't all that interesting mechanically, and really the diplomacy is a bit shallow as well.

100% agree. IR is a far better game when you play as a small nation, take it slow and try to get the most out of every invention/ levy etc.

It’s when you get big and don’t have to worry about politics/ diplomacy it loses its magic. I find playing as Rome you don’t need be too worried about inventions, making alliances. You’ll be at war constantly so all I want are siege bonuses and I ramp up to speed 5 and exactly like you said it stops being fun. If as Rome I was worried about federations like being worried about coalitions as France in eu4 it’d be more fun. It’s a shame cause I love Rome but they’re not that fun in this game. Have to play total war to have a fun run as Rome, but playing a small nation I’ll forget the time passing

 

[EricMN93]

In my case I always play at speed 1 or 2 and on rare occasions speed 3.

This way everything feels more authentic. The importance of the terrain where you fight, the tactics, how you manage the different families, the inventions you use, etc.

 

[Voy]

They all could use some more flavour, especially Bactria and Armenia.

Like what? What would you like to see?

 

[Maria Theresa]

Like what? What would you like to see?

Hard to say about Armenia because i know very little of their history.
I feel Armenia is more fun as a tall-ish campaign so maybe some mission trees based around choice between sticking with the zoroastrian religion and converting your population that is largely khaldic at start and tearing down the many khaldic holy sites you have for some conversion bonuses for zoroastrian or going back to the khaldic religion. There's an event that fires when Seleukids are planning to attack you that lets you choose between temporary bonuses to fort defense or army morale. I'd like to see that expanded into a mission tree aswell where you get to either build up your fortifications or prepare an army to fight the Seleukids (and other potential enemies).
Also Armenia has almost no cities at the start, most of their provinces have 0. Another mission tree could focus on either building up the core territory around the capital or being able to more cheaply found new cities in the further reaches of the country. Because right now making new cities costs way too much PI to urbanize a country as large as Armenia in any meaningful way.

I think Bactria takes the whole melting pot of cultures thing to whole new level compared to most other places.
There's an event that lets you switch your Macedonian primary culture to Bactrian but it happens like 60+ years after the game start and it's not that exciting. I don't like that you have to choose between being completely Macedonian or Bactrian. And the integrated cultures mechanic doesn't really work that well in my opinion.
I would like to see flavour based around unique Greco-Bactrian culture that you can create, similar to how forming the Argead Empire makes a new "Hellenic" culture. The Greco-Bactrian culture would have levies that are a mix of hellenic and Bactrian, meaning lots of heavy infantry with some horse archers and most importantly ELEPHANTS! For mission trees you could get some stuff to help you claim the Seleukid and Mauryan lands. Bactria also could use some city founding stuff but it is less important than for Armenia as Bactria has a lot more cities to begin with.

For Kush i would like to see a path to proclaiming yourself the one and only TRUE Egyptian kingdom and taking the fight to the Ptolemys to oust the greeks from Egypt.
I also feel like they should get some mission to build cities on the nile. The provinces of Alana and Napata could use some territory modifiers or maybe terrain changes because there's only desert there and making cities is bit difficult (Not saying you should be able to fill the desert with metropolises but having at least 1 territory that can support a decent city would be nice).
Alternatively maybe you could embrace the Greek influences and convert to Hellenic religion yourself and get some tech bonuses or something. And perhaps you could then turn your gaze to south and east instead, trying to bring the hellenic religion to whole of Africa and Arabian peninsula. It's a bit of ahistorical but i don't think it is absurd to think that it could have happened.

 

[Aethis]

I really love Byblos. That little remnant of a once glorious Phoenecia. Reuniting that old empire in the face of nigh insurmountable odds is so amazingly satisfying

It's something I've wanted to try for a while, how do you get this going now? Attack the Antigonids during the Diadochi wars?

 

[Pro]

100% agree. IR is a far better game when you play as a small nation, take it slow and try to get the most out of every invention/ levy etc.

It’s when you get big and don’t have to worry about politics/ diplomacy it loses its magic. I find playing as Rome you don’t need be too worried about inventions, making alliances. You’ll be at war constantly so all I want are siege bonuses and I ramp up to speed 5 and exactly like you said it stops being fun. If as Rome I was worried about federations like being worried about coalitions as France in eu4 it’d be more fun. It’s a shame cause I love Rome but they’re not that fun in this game. Have to play total war to have a fun run as Rome, but playing a small nation I’ll forget the time passing

The game before my Hibernia game I actually played Rome and I did try to push myself to optimize and I basically never had the speed above 4, 3 most of the time and just made myself optimize things. It made it a lot more fun than playing Rome at speed 5. By the time I was conquering the Selucids though the empire had grown too large for me to keep up with, so I quit the campaign after that war.

Since I got a bunch of positive reactions on my post I thought I'd mention that I posted a write up of my Hibernia game in the AAR forum yesterday. I hope self promotions are ok.

 

[Lord Finnish]

Pandya. Depending on how you count they have a claim to be the longest ruling dynasty in history, and along with their neighbour Chola they are the only state/dynasty playable in Imperator, CK and EU.

I had my first full 2.0 game as them. I liked the flow of starting in a sea of small states and then facing the "final boss" in the Mauryas.

I'd love to see an India expansion some day. Imperator takes place in the golden age of Tamil culture so Imperator if any is a great place to give them some attention.

 

[alvaro]

My last game with Gadir playing diplomatically was one of the best experiences I had with a Paradox game. You need to be a bit lucky at the beginning though.

 

[Voy]

My last game with Gadir playing diplomatically was one of the best experiences I had with a Paradox game. You need to be a bit lucky at the beginning though.

Why was it your best experience, what's so special about them?

 

[Marty651]

I like this thread! May I ask you experts one thing: Not every country on the map has an own mission tree, right? There are also "generic" mission trees I believe. But when I choose a country at game start where do I see if country specific missions are available?

 

[alvaro]

Why was it your best experience, what's so special about them?

probably you can have the same satisfaction with any really minor civilized nation. the reason is that you really have to be balancing the risks and assessing perfectly well when to go for diploannex and when to ally to who in order to avoid seeing yourself in wars that you cannot win. also, in very small countries every pop is precious. it all feels so real. You have many countries alike in Iberia but I just happen to enjoy more playing civilized nations.

 

[Voy]

I like this thread! May I ask you experts one thing: Not every country on the map has an own mission tree, right? There are also "generic" mission trees I believe. But when I choose a country at game start where do I see if country specific missions are available?

For the most part, those with unique mission trees are featured on the left side when selecting a new game. Rome, Carthage, Epirus, Athens, Sparta, Syracuse, Thrace, Macedon, Seleucids, Egypt and the Antigonid Kingdom and require DLC for access to the unique missions. Might be one or two more unique missions trees, but they're the big ones. There are also a few regional missions that are available to the Diodachi heirs and several for the Hellenic group depending on location.

Missions - Imperator Wiki

imperator.paradoxwikis.com

Greek missions - Imperator Wiki

imperator.paradoxwikis.com

 

[Nostalgium]

Armenia. I play them so often they're my default test run nation for new patches. Other lovelets of mine are the Armorican tribes in Gaul, Crete, and Southern Hispanic tribes.

 

[alvaro]

Armorican tribes in Gaul

By Toutatis that's a choice I hadn't thought of! a potion event gicing moral boost or something might even be suitable

 

[Voy]

Knossos -> Crete is one I've enjoyed since the beginning. If it was a fictional fantasy, I'd give it some fun mythology-based heritage. In my last game I got lucky and managed to capture Cyprus and Pamphylia from fallen Antigonids - enough to conquer Sparta and rest of Achaea with.

Heraclea Pontica was fun although I've only tried one game since the nerf in the latest patch. Playing the last Achaemenid imperial remnant, surrounded by huge empires and kingdoms on every side, is very interesting even if I inevitably lose and get annexed.

Although I find tribes boring right now (lack of mechanics and content mostly), I've tried playing these since 2.0 was released -

- Parni - you are on a time limit to conquer rival nomads and unite central Asia, before Seleucids and Bactrians inevitably march on you. Forming historical Parthia is outside my skill level, but I had one game where second Mauryan-Seleucid War happened and I managed to get a lot of land in that chaos.
- Scordisci and Boii - because if you unite your region, you are able to invade Greece and Italy respectively. Very tough, but also very fun for a short rampage-style game.
- Vascones and Iceni - because everyone around is larger than you, so forming alliances and confederations and fighting mini world-wars is fun.
- Caledonii and Bohemia - been playing these since the beginning because they're mostly isolated and can expand via colonization.

I'd also list Getae but I think they're kinda mainstream now.

I am waiting for the next patch because holy site pop movement bug is killing certain smaller nations I wanted to play.

Great list, but I wouldn't call the Getae too mainstream for this thread. What do you think of them and why? What do they lack so far?

 

[Lord Lambert]

how do you get this going now? Attack the Antigonids during the Diadochi wars?

I have not yet tried it in 2.0, but I believe that would be the strategy, yeah. Try to time it where the Antigonids are busy everywhere and you can get the sieges done before Egypt swallows the region