History VideoGame / ImperatorRome

* MadeASlave: You can do this to imprisoned characters; prisoners captured during combat count as well. On a larger scale, grabbing pops as slaves is a desirable goal during wars.

* PaperTiger: Both the Seleucid Empire and Phrygia are ''pathetically'' weak. While they control some massive tracts of land, this is the very reason why they are so weak: population is spread out [[note]]Also, both countries control large numbers of pops which differ from the state culture and religion, making them inefficient.[[/note]], cities are few and far in between, and moving troops around is nigh-impossible, as it predictably takes years to get from an area with manpower to the place where the war is fought. Money-making is restricted, since apart from the capital, concentrating slaves just won't happen. For comparison, any other country that gradually grows big, rather than starting as such, will be resilient to the issues related to its size.
** However, despite folding like a paper toy, both of those countries can still use their ''supposed'' might in diplomacy, strong-arming city-states and minor nations with mere threats of war.

* SpaceFillingEmpire: Maurya, Seleucids, Phrygia and Carthage are those at the game start. Rome can steam-roll most of northern and central Italy within first 30-40 years. But the most literal example would be Ptolemaic Egypt and Kingdom of Kush south of it - both countries consists almost entirely out of provinces right next to the Nile and impassable desert around them. Whoever controls sufficient numbers of those provinces, "claims" the desert itself, painting large swath of map in their colour... while it's useless for anything else. [[note]]However, Kush is a small fish in a tiny pond; while it cannot hope to go head-to-head against Ptolemaic Egypt, it has plenty of expansion options to its south, netting it land and more crucially, pops belonging to its primary culture.[[/note]]

* OutofFocus: Anyone who isn't Rome, Carthage and the diadochi kingdoms gets generic missions. And they are truly generic, without any sort of even regional or cultural flavour attached. The only way to gain few more country-specific missions is to buy [=DLCs=], at average rate of 2 countries per content pack, which only adds to the already poor reception of ''Imperator''.

* OutofFocus: Anyone who isn't Rome, Carthage and the diadochi kingdoms gets generic missions. And they are truly generic, without any sort of even regional or cultural flavour attatched. The only way to gain few more country-specific missions is to buy [=DLCs=], at average rate of 2 countries per content pack, which only adds to the already poor reception of ''Imperator''.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: A viable alternative to waging wars is to threaten with one. If the disparity of military power is big enough, the threatened side will automatically yield to the demand (and it's impossible to issue the threat otherwise). However, the threat only allows a single territory to be acquired, rather than whole provinces or even regions and once the demand is met, a regular truce period is issued, as if finishing an actual war. It is still handy for those strategically important settlements. Especially when the "military might" only exists on paper: Seleucids have a hard time to get their armies where they are needed on time, while Carthage is a naval power backed by mercenaries, without almost any means to raise regular armies in meaningful quantities.

* CivilWarcraft: Likely, considering the setting. Displease too many people within a single family while controlling a large, unstable country and they ''will'' start to plot toward a civil war.

* PowerupLetdown: Playing as Syracuse and managing to reform into Sicily, which requires beating Carthage, one of the most powerful and wealthy nations at the game start, as a tiny country controlling ''at best'' half of Sicily and a bunch of settlements in Calabria, offers nothing in return aside from a new country name and finishing the starting mission tree. Worse, you don't really need Carthage itself for anything; you just have to kick them out of Sicily, so it's a massive war over a literal handful of worthless settlements. The letdown is only topped by the ability to form [[NintendoHard Magna Graecia]], which on top of beating Carthage, also assumes ''beating Rome'' and doing it ''at least twice'' due to the inherent value of provinces needed for it, as it's just not gonna happen in a single peace talk. Once you achieve that, you gain...a new country name and flag, bordering on BraggingRightsReward. To put this in perspective - Syracuse is a small, but tasty snack between two land-hungry empires with resources and manpower vastly exceeding your own, while having no other direction of expansion other than to fight said empires, as Syracuse lacks the supply range to conquer anything outside the Magna Graecia region, the southern-most parts of the Italian Peninsula. It's not helping that a whole DLC, aptly titled ''Magna Graecia'', has as one of its main focuses Syracuse and its possible raise to power... and doesn't address any of this. At all.

* ArrangedMarriage: Like in ''Crusader Kings'', you can marry your leaders with other families to secure alliances and general politicking.

** True barbarians are hostile to every state, and reduce the civilization level of a territory when they occupy it.

* HistoricalInJoke: The province id for Byzantion, at this point a minor Greek city-state, is 1453.

Unlike its predecessor, Imperator fleshes out the non-Roman states that ruled Eurasia during this time period, with a concave map that stretches from Iberia to India. The game begins in 450 [[AbUrbeCondita A.U.C]] (304 BCE), with the Roman Republic as merely one power among many, and the player is challenged to either repeat Rome's ascendancy or guide another power to the greatness that Rome possessed in our timeline. The game itself combines mechanics from VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis, [[VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun the Victoria series]], and VideoGame/CrusaderKings, featuring population mechanics, with [=POPs=] divided by culture, religion, and class, trade mechanics and trade goods, and fleshed out characters and character interaction, allowing for the simulation of both economic growth and political intrigue. The map is the largest yet for a Paradox game, containing over 9000 provinces and numerous cultures, tribes, and states. The game launched with three political systems: Roman-style republics, authoritarian monarchies, and tribal clans. Probably unique to ''Imperator'' among PDS games, the smallest unit of land on the map is not a "province", but a settlement; "provinces" here are groupings of settlements.

** The reward for forming nations usually comes with claims for all territories related to the new nation. Thing is, barring some rare occurrences, you will control all of that region anyway, since new territory can be only taken if it has a connection with your existing country. And even if you only took the settlements you need for the new nation, you still needed a claim to get there, from either a mission or a diplomatic action.

* TheEmpire: "Empire" is a special form of monarchic government, which a country can enact once it controls ''[[SpaceFillingEmpire 600]]'' settlements. For comparison, getting to Great Power status requires ''only'' 500 and is already a feat by itself [[note]]At the game's start, ''only'' the Maurya is a Great Power, and after accepting territories from the Seleucids in exchange for some war elephants and a truce.[[/note]]. It offers four (as opposed to the regular three) national ideas to be active at once - and one from each type, thus providing a lot of flexibility. Also comes in religious variety, by running an [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 imperial cult]] instead.

* LonelyAtTheTop: After achieving Great Power rank (500 or more controlled settlements), a country can no longer have alliances.

* AnOfferYouCantRefuse: A viable alternative to waging wars is to threaten with one. If the disparity of military power is big enough, the threatened side will automatically yield to the demand (and it's impossible to issue the threat otherwise). However, the threat only allows a single settlement to be acquired, rather than whole provinces or even regions and once the demand is met, a regular truce period is issued, as if finishing an actual war. It is still handy for those strategically important settlements. Especially when the "military might" only exists on paper: Seleucids have a hard time to get their armies where they are needed on time, while Carthage is a naval power backed by mercenaries, without almost any means to raise regular armies in meaningful quantities.

** In case the player still hasn't received the memo, they are to try avoiding this trope as much as possible, as it is how many pops they control and how happy these pops are which is crucial; territory is rather secondary in ''Imperator''.

** Once you have a city with at least 10 [=POPs=] adjacent to an uncolonized inhabitable settlement, you can move a POP into that settlement and claim it as your own, though the native [=POPs=] will retain their religion and culture. This is vital to shutting down barbarian strongholds, as they can only be shut down by bordering settled, civilized settlements and having civilization spread to them by those means.

* WarForFunAndProfit: The economy is literally run by slaves. And you need a lot of them to get things done. Since there is no actual slave market in-game, your main source of slaves is going to come from wars. The weaker and more numerous the enemies, the better, because that means just running around their land and throwing pops into shackles. Depopulated entire settlements in the process? No sweat, just colonise it with your own people once the war is over, preferably with your war veterans.

Unlike its predecessor, Imperator fleshes out the non-Roman states that ruled Eurasia during this time period, with a concave map that stretches from Iberia to India. The game begins in 450 [[AbUrbeCondita A.U.C]] (304 BCE), with the Roman Republic as merely one power among many, and the player is challenged to either repeat Rome's ascendancy or guide another power to the greatness that Rome possessed in our timeline. The game itself combines mechanics from VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis, [[VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun the Victoria series]], and VideoGame/CrusaderKings, featuring population mechanics, with [=POPs=] divided by culture, religion, and class, trade mechanics and trade goods, and fleshed out characters and character interaction, allowing for the simulation of both economic growth and political intrigue. The map is the largest yet for a Paradox game, containing over 9000 provinces and numerous cultures, tribes, and states. The game launched with three political systems: Roman-style republics, authoritarian monarchies, and tribal clans.

** Turning a rural province into a city prevents it completely from having any sort of agriculture infrastructure, period. This ignores the fact most cities all the way until railroads became a thing were surrounded by fields, villages and serving settlements dedicated to providing food to the city.

* ChokepointGeography: Various areas are absolutely impassable, forcing troops to march over very specific paths. This in turn allows to use forts extensively, as it is entirely possible to block enemy invasion by forcing enemy army to first besiege a high-level fort with no chance of taking it over for years. The most prominent example are various Alpine passes, with most of the mountains being impassable terrain, but there are also deserts of Northern Africa and Middle East and such blockers like Caucasus or Hindu Kush Mountains.

* LandOfOneCity: The map is absolutely packed with minor tribes that are likely fated to be conquered by a greater power - unless they become a conqueror themselves. And there are of course various Greek city-states, which routinely control just a single province, often as an outpost in complete wilderness, surrounded by far more numerous barbarians.

* LuckBasedMission: Upon settling a new city, if the province was producing a resource qualified as food, it will be replaced with some finished good. Which one exactly is a random roll. Likewise, if you happen to have a mission granting prospecting for minerals, the results are random, chances to find anything at all low and it's a one-time deal, with no retries - including anyone who conquers that ''entire region'' later and manages to generate the same mission, which will auto-fail.

* NoBloodForPhlebotinum: There is a small handful of provinces that provide iron. If you don't have it and nobody that has spares likes you, you ''are'' going to fight for it. And once you have it, you ''are'' going to defend it. Part of the reason why Rome is so strong is readily access to not just iron itself, but a surplus of it.

* PowerupLetdown: Playing as Syracuse and managing to reform into Sicily, which requires beating Carthage, one of the most powerful and wealthy nations at the game start, as a tiny country controlling ''at best'' half of Sicily and a bunch of provinces in Calabria, offers nothing in return aside from a new country name and finishing the starting mission tree. Worse, you don't really need Carthage itself for anything; you just have to kick them out of Sicily, so it's a massive war over a literal handful of worthless settlements. The letdown is only topped by the ability to form [[NintendoHard Magna Graecia]], which on top of beating Carthage, also assumes ''beating Rome'' and doing it ''at least twice'' due to the inherent value of provinces needed for it, as it's just not gonna happen in a single peace talk. Once you achieve that, you gain...a new country name and flag, bordering on BraggingRightsReward. To put this in perspective - Syracuse is a small, but tasty snack between two land-hungry empires with resources and manpower vastly exceeding your own, while having no other direction of expansion other than to fight said empires, as Syracuse lacks the supply range to conquer anything outside the Magna Graecia region, the southern-most parts of the Italian Peninsula. It's not helping that a whole DLC, aptly titled ''Magna Graecia'', has as one of its main focuses Syracuse and its possible raise to power... and doesn't address any of this. At all.

** Once you have a city with at least 10 [=POPs=] adjacent to an uncolonized inhabitable province, you can move a POP into that province and claim it as your own, though the native [=POPs=] will retain their religion and culture. This is vital to shutting down barbarian strongholds, as they can only be shut down by bordering settled, civilized provinces and having civilization spread to them by those means.
** Certain cultures have an option to establish a military colony, which turns part of the army into freemen pops in any province with small enough populations. It's the fastest and easiest way to turn newly conquered hinterland into your own culture, while providing manpower to form new armies.

* SpaceFillingEmpire: Maurya, Seleucids, Phrygia and Carthage are those at the game start. Rome can steam-roll most of northern and central Italy within first 30-40 years. But the most literal example would be Ptolemaic Egypt and Kingdom of Kush south of it - both countries consists almost entirely out of provinces right next to the Nile and impassable desert around them. Whoever controls sufficient numbers of those provinces, "claims" the desert itself, painting large swath of map in their colour... while it's useless for anything else.

** The game does not explain how food production works or how important it is or how one should deliberately keep most of the region rural aside from strategically placed cities, especially in food producing provinces. This leads to disastrous famines by mid-game and by that point dealing with them, while technically possible, is just not worth it, forcing a game over.

** Only pre-defined provinces can operate as ports and count toward trade-related mechanics. That tiny harbour animation isn't just for show, but aside from it, there is no other indication which province can work as a port.
* WarElephants: Available to anyone who can trade with a province that supplies elephants, which really means North Africa and India. They also cost double the supply limit of any unit.
* WarForFunAndProfit: The economy is literally run by slaves. And you need a lot of them to get things done. Since there is no actual slave market in-game, your main source of slaves is going to come from wars. The weaker and more numerous the enemies, the better, because that means just running around their land and throwing pops into shackles. Depopulated entire province in the process? No sweat, just colonise it with your own people once the war is over, preferably with your war veterans.
* WildCard: Barbarian armies. Not in the sense of barbarian countries, but roaming barbarian armies, spawned at frontiers of civilisation and acting like a special type of rebel army. They can be fought with, they can be paid off (which they might decline, but keeping the offered money anyway) and with proper incentive of military presence and fortifications, directed instead toward ''other'' nations. If left to their own devices, barbarians are going to pillage anything in their path and might even forcibly settle somewhere, essentially grabbing a province or five in the process.

* YouRequireMoreVespeneGas: You can only recruit certain units in a province if you have the required resource: iron for heavy infantry, horses for all cavalry, etc. If not, you can recruit any unit to a particular army, but it will have to walk all the way from the nearest province with the needed resource. Thankfully, trade routes allow you to allocate surplus resources to different parts of your empire, cutting down the time to get there.

* ApatheticCitizens: Nope. If pops are unhappy, they ''will'' be unproductive at best, and rebellious if conditions don't improve.

** Various city states don't contain an actual city settlement, instead being a rural backwater. This is especially jarring in case of Greece proper. ''Magna Graecia'' DLC adressed it for the most part.

* AnnoyingArrows: Archers are ''the'' weakest and most useless type of troops. While they have a small bonus against heavy infantry, it's greatly outweighed by their pathetic stats.

** Various city states don't contain an actual city settlement, instead being a rural backwater. This is especially jarring in case of Greece proper.

* PowerupLetdown: Playing as Syracuse and managing to reform into Sicily, which requires beating Carthage, one of the most powerful and wealthy nations at the game start, as a tiny country controlling ''at best'' half of Sicily and a bunch of provinces in Calabria, offers nothing in return aside from a new country name and finishing the starting mission tree. Worse, you don't really need Carthage itself for anything; you just have to kick them out of Sicily, so it's a massive war over a literal handful of worthless settlements. The letdown is only topped by the ability to form [[NintendoHard Magna Graecia]], which on top of beating Carthage, also assumes ''beating Rome'' and doing it ''at least twice'' due to the inherent value of provinces needed for it, as it's just not gonna happen in a single peace talk. Once you achieve that, you gain...a new country name and flag, bordering on BraggingRightsReward. To put this in perspective - Syracuse is a small, but tasty snack between two land-hungry empires with resources and manpower vastly exceeding your own, while having no other direction of expansion other than to fight said empires, as Syracuse lacks the supply range to conquer anything outside the Magna Graecia region, the southern-most parts of the Italian Peninsula.