Why Imperator Rome was going to be a far better game than other Paradox titles we have now

[Emberfox]

Sounds a lot like Old gods DLC for Crusaders Kings II to me. Early start looks nice on paper but in reality game gets very messy and boring when major nations does not appear and you play in weird version of antiquity world. I dont really want to play antiquity without Rome or Macedon. I find bronze age boring since we dont know that much about this period of time.

I think games like CK, EU or IR are not meant to be played for more than a couple of centuries. Going from bronze age to classical antiquity does not sounds really fun to me and suits better to games like Civilization.

I would "slightly" adjusted timeline like +100 years and that would do the trick.

I like that this game offers fun to very different playstyles.


What I would love to do, one day, is to actually start a game in the I:R Bronze Age mod and import it to regular I:R.
Sure, I would probably have only generic missions, but I am kinda used to that thanks to my preference for tribals.
I just think it would be fun to create a completly different and unrecognizeable world, step by step. =)


Well, that and migrating northern germanics into egypt and turn them into a death cult as a backdrop for a Stellaris Necrophage origin.

I actually dislike playing close to history, it makes me feel .. bad. If I keep the game realistic, I feel like I have to adher to my RL morals and beliefs - which severly limits what I can do in a game.

 

[blackbirdgriffi]

Bronze age is what bring all the wars that we see Macedon against Persian, and yes there was big Nations there: Egypt, Assyrian, Syrian, Medo, Persian, even Greek and Celtic can be traced back there and just to clarify 'the fall of Babylon'...Israel is another one.

It's not boring it's just not mainstream.

Yeah man Bronze age would be so awsome, and let's not forget that it was a long ass time too so much stuff happens with a humongeous opportunities for interesting start dates, different feel for the period, quite extended data in writing archeological sources, amazing capacity for international trade (at the very least in eastern medditeranean), and colonisation (be it the mesopotamian ones with foreigh military settlement or the much later phoenician and greek one at the end of the period. and in bonus you even have a massive apocalypse at the end of the period too.

It's a shame it isn't popular because there's so much storytelling and entertainement to have from exploring the period. (except if you take into account the horrendeous sentence which makes me cringe everytime : "we don't know much about the period" which should be written as : "I didn't do my research and I am currently asuming that the expert on the period didn't either so let's all ignore one of the most important building bloc of history".

EDIT: sorry went in a bit of a rant at the end, no harms intended

 

[flowerpunkt]

Bronze age is what bring all the wars that we see Macedon against Persian, and yes there was big Nations there: Egypt, Assyrian, Syrian, Medo, Persian, even Greek and Celtic can be traced back there and just to clarify 'the fall of Babylon'...Israel is another one.

It's not boring it's just not mainstream.

Greeko-Persian wars are not bronze age to me. When you talk about bronze you talk about period of time between 3000bc to 1000bc and its simply too long period of time for such a game.


Real bronze age was about Mycenaean Greece, Hatiti kingdom, Egypt and Levant and mezopotamia Kingdoms. In Europe there were no real nations at all and we know very little about tribes there. To put it simply - most of the map would be unnocuppied. Another problem is that all of these nations except for Egypt vanished in bronze age collapse and we know nearly nothing about it. We know nearly nothing about transition from bronze to iron age, there are like 5-6 centuries from 1200-700bc that we know almost nothing about that period of time - its called dark ages. So I dont think its really good idea to make such a game. The scope is too big and there is not enough info about that period of time.

I think classical antiquity is much more intertesting period of time but thats just my opinion.

 

[Ivashanko]

"Modders usually mod for games with living communities. Why waste time modding a dead game?"

What about Fallout 2? Released back in the 1998 when Paradox barely released its first game and till today ppl are making huge incredible mods to this game and its been 23 years since release!

I disagree with that, as games long given up by their developers are thriving due to modders. One current example is Civ 5, with the Vox Populi mod, which is light years away from vanilla, & far better than that bore Civ 6.

What do you mean by dead games not beeing modded? I fail too understand as most of hte games I play modded from M2TW to CKII could be considered dead. maybe I just misunderstood.

For every game you can mention that has remained alive due to modding, I can list thousands that didn't.

And all the games mentioned have two things in common: they were extremely popular and remain well beloved in their respective communities. I don't think Imperator checks either of those two boxes.

Look, I hope I'm wrong. I do. I'm open to being surprised, to being astounded. But I don't think you guys should get your hopes up.

 

[blackbirdgriffi]

For everyone game you can mention that has remained alive due to modding, I can probably list several thousand that didn't.

And all the games mentioned have several similarities: they were extremely popular and remain well beloved in their respective communities. I don't think Imperator checks either of those checkmarks.

Look, I hope I'm wrong. I do. I'm open to being surprised, to being astounded. But I don't think you guys should get your hopes up.

That makes sense, just like you tho I sincerly hope that your pessimism is ill placed

 

[Maratha]

Players have talked about Imperator as a joke and warned others not to even try the game. It was never as bad as some claimed and its been steadily improved through patches and DLC's.

Every time imperator got some patch that improved it, people still claimed it was a joke of a game and kept warning people to stay away and gave bad reviews.

And now that the game is one of the better GSG games people reviewbomb it to make sure that paradox wont bother recruiting more devs to work on it.

And still some wonders why development was put on hold.

I 100% support this. Part of some of the fanbase has to lay blame for essentially making this game a bomb when it hardly deserved that at all. I don't mean the YouTubers, I mean the ones on the comments and steam forums going wahh wahh game bad after every patch tried to improve the game.

I can see why the devs were just tired of supporting this game when you have some parts going wah wah bad patch. Tired of it.

 

[Maratha]

Yeah man Bronze age would be so awsome, and let's not forget that it was a long ass time too so much stuff happens with a humongeous opportunities for interesting start dates, different feel for the period, quite extended data in writing archeological sources, amazing capacity for international trade (at the very least in eastern medditeranean), and colonisation (be it the mesopotamian ones with foreigh military settlement or the much later phoenician and greek one at the end of the period. and in bonus you even have a massive apocalypse at the end of the period too.

It's a shame it isn't popular because there's so much storytelling and entertainement to have from exploring the period. (except if you take into account the horrendeous sentence which makes me cringe everytime : "we don't know much about the period" which should be written as : "I didn't do my research and I am currently asuming that the expert on the period didn't either so let's all ignore one of the most important building bloc of history".

EDIT: sorry went in a bit of a rant at the end, no harms intended

Literally, the mythology of the Bronze Age is like one Giant Anime season altogether - the heroes and figures of this time, the Gods and Goddesses, were out of this world.

I mean I cringe when we hear we don't know much - no. It's because more attention needs to be devoted to it the same that way academia so excessively fawns over Imperial Rome.

 

[blackbirdgriffi]

Literally, the mythology of the Bronze Age is like one Giant Anime season altogether - the heroes and figures of this time, the Gods and Goddesses, were out of this world.

True but to be honest the same can be applied to most mythology linked to religious pantheon and that remains true well beyond the scope of this game and well into EU4's period with Lithuanian paganism, hell some might go so far as to says the say about Hinduism which in some way is the last remenant of Indo-european pantheon approach to religious belief and has those recognizable approach to myth and some very "human" like characteristics and flaws for their gods.

I mean I cringe when we hear we don't know much - no. It's because more attention needs to be devoted to it the same that way academia so excessively fawns over Imperial Rome.

I'm sorry i'm not native in english and I don't quite understand that part are you agreeing or disagreeing?

 

[Maratha]

True but to be honest the same can be applied to most mythology linked to religious pantheon and that remains true well beyond the scope of this game and well into EU4's period with Lithuanian paganism, hell some might go so far as to says the say about Hinduism which in some way is the last remenant of Indo-european pantheon approach to religious belief and has those recognizable approach to myth and some very "human" like characteristics and flaws for their gods.

I'm sorry i'm not native in english and I don't quite understand that part are you agreeing or disagreeing?

I think there needs to be more solid evidence to showcase the links between Hindusim and Lithuanian paganism - It would be cool

What I mean is that Western historians doesn't devote enough attention to the Bronze Age as they do on classical anqutity. That's in popular culture, academia etc.

 

[flowerpunkt]

I think there needs to be more solid evidence to showcase the links between Hindusim and Lithuanian paganism - It would be cool

What I mean is that Western historians doesn't devote enough attention to the Bronze Age as they do on classical anqutity. That's in popular culture, academia etc.

Problem with Bronze age is simple - we didnt find enough written stuff from that time and when you cant find enough archeological sites, there is no way to know more. Simple as that.

My problem with Bronze is not only we dont know that much about this period time but as I said, most of the map would have to be EMPTY.

Everyone who wants Bronze age, its very easy to do. Download Bronze age : Reborn mod for I:R and you will see what I mean. but hey thats just my opinion and my taste. Someone might like it a lot, some impressive work was made for the mod.

 

[Nak'Arosh]

You don't need to put all nations on the map, what we don't know exactly can be put as Terras Nullis(can't go there) and as the game is advancing this areas will open accordingly to the date time. As you empire survive along time and you didn't see the common nations of antiquity like Persian and etc a event can pop up with new culture forming and they declare rebellion and form new nations on your territory. This could be like a Crisis bring your entire empire fall down and you can choose which new nation you want continue or restore your empire. This massive event would reshape the world and open more areas of the map and them you gonna see the surging of many know empires and nation that you know.

Everything depends on how you manage the game, code and etc.

 

[ozfighter]

Players have talked about Imperator as a joke and warned others not to even try the game. It was never as bad as some claimed and its been steadily improved through patches and DLC's.

Every time imperator got some patch that improved it, people still claimed it was a joke of a game and kept warning people to stay away and gave bad reviews.

And now that the game is one of the better GSG games people reviewbomb it to make sure that paradox wont bother recruiting more devs to work on it.

And still some wonders why development was put on hold.

"Review bombing" Is it so hard to believe that people genuinely didnt like the game?

It was just a horrifically bad product on release all criticism of the game i read was completely valid.

 

[Kadanz]

I'll keep playing this game as long as there is an active modding community.

 

[Lakigigar]

I have bought the game today. Gonna try it, see if the criticism is valid, but at least i was able to buy it quite cheaply. (also bought the CK III season pass and some few remaining DLC's from other games that were on sale).

At this point Vicky 2 is breaking records, and has more far people playing it than I:R. But I was quite surprised to see that HoI4 is the most popular Paradox game right now, followed by Stellaris. EUIV isn't on top anymore. And CKIII is 4th

 

[Godd_Howard]

"Review bombing" Is it so hard to believe that people genuinely didnt like the game?

It was just a horrifically bad product on release all criticism of the game i read was completely valid.

Anyone who says they loved Imperator 1.0 is either lying or has a bad taste in games.

 

[Herennius]

Anyone who says they loved Imperator 1.0 is either lying or has a bad taste in games.

Maybe a different taste? I joined IR with 1.1, had already fun with my playthroughs and fell in love with the game. With the dreaded mana still being in. I don't mind it being gone and think 2.0 is worlds better, but I consider myself neither lying nor I accept the notion that my taste is bad, just because I enjoyed an older version of IR.

 

[Godd_Howard]

Maybe a different taste? I joined IR with 1.1, had already fun with my playthroughs and fell in love with the game. With the dreaded mana still being in. I don't mind it being gone and think 2.0 is worlds better, but I consider myself neither lying nor I accept the notion that my taste is bad, just because I enjoyed an older version of IR.

I mean I've played worse games and liked them. The fact is that 1.0 Imperator was not as good as 2.0 Imperator. I say so many harsh things becasue I expect Paradox to deliver a good game, when other developers I hold to a much lower standard because that's how I perceive or at least did percieve Paradox - being many heads above other developers and publishers in terms of everything. So in my eyes 1.0 Imperator Rome was an insult to that perception.

 

[Slavicist]

Friends, Romans, map painters. Lend me your eyes. I come not to bury Imperator but to praise him... The noble Paradox hath told you Imperator was underperforming in player numbers, if it was so it was a grievous fault and grievously hath Imperator answer'd it. Here under leave of Paradox and the map painting community. For Paradox is an honourable publisher.

Compared to older games such as EU4, Stellaris, HoI4 and CK2 Imperator has stunning visuals that could bring it forward to more people. It also is a game about one of the most popular periods of history - the rise of Rome. It is true Imperator's playerbase was rather small. But is that not the fault of Paradox releasing a game that had nothing going for it before the last couple of patches? Now I don't mean to bash CK3 but it's not exactly a masterpiece sequel to CK2 right now. Yet it has more players due to it having a better more polished structure on which the developers can build on rather than trying to build that sturcture form the ground up like Imperator had to do.
I love HoI4 but it gets stale very fast with only so many countries even having focus trees(Italy not included sadly) but when you play Imperator you have much more options even if there is close to 0 content on that region you are playing in. It's still fun playing in Tibet trying to build up a mountain empire and protect against he Bactrians and Mauryans.
I bought every Imperator DLC not just because it had new content I wanted to try but also becasue I knew that would incentivize the Publisher to continue to work on the game, I guess I was wrong in more ways than one. But I can only imagine on how much interesting things we will be missing out on due to them stopping development. (I was waiting for those Horse/Elephant/Camel unit models btw, what a shame my horse archer army still has to march on foot)

My only tip to Paradox Interactive is - don't do any more games with eagles on the cover.

I knew problems were brewing when it was its first Black Friday, like, -95% off.

 

[Raichuu]

I bought the game at day 1 of release back then. I loved it really, though it had some performance issues of regular stuttering. That was quickly fixed.
Been enjoying the game ever since then, even now, I'd say the game didn't improve on what was there but rather changed completely. Despite the changes, I enjoy the game for what it is now. I don't care really about the bad reviews. There is plenty of content left for me to discover and so many nations to try out with so many different strategies.
Surely, it's sad there is no more development in 2021. But honestly speaking, the game might only bore me by end of 2020 when I played soooo many hours, totally worth the money spent already. I am 6312h into the game btw. Partially afk but still, nonethless worth the money.

 

[EarlKonrad]

The thing is you can't really hype something that a had a horrible first impression. It's just too hard to recover from bad first impressions. This game was DOA due to how it got review bombed right out of the gate.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't CK I did ok and CK II at launch also did ok and it was only after some expansions and word of mouth that the game started getting some traction?

Also, I don't follow the Dev of No Man's Sky but hasn't that game been consistently hyped quite a lot since its initial release? So much so that its launch went from a cautionary tale of "be careful with where you place your trust" into "stick with a bad and bare bone game long enough and the game will be good". Hell, maybe in an year or two it will be the same case for CP 77.