At last, after
so many years Paradox Interactive has decided to push out a new Grand Strategy
game in the Roman Era, their previous development was called Europa
Universalis: Rome and the expansion, Rome – Vae Victis, sure added something to
the game but at the time I felt it lacking, needing much love and a revamp of
some of the awkward mechanics inherited, from my own perspective, from an earlier
version of Europa Universalis III and a limited engine, if memory does not fail
me there was this great improvement on the Europa Universalis III engine that
made it look fantastic from the original blob it presented itself like.
Something that
stroke me as interesting when trying Crusader Kings II back when it came out
was the fact that it shared some of the mechanics of the Rome game, it had individuals
with their own goals and ambitions which could lead an army, govern, rebel,
plot murder, all the goody stuff CK2 players enjoy so much nowadays was inherited
and polished (after a couple of expansions, mechanic revamps and other things
in between) to what we know today of it. From the side of Europa Universalis, I
am unsure how much it was inherited but I can be sure that with the current
version that is coming out, Imperator: Rome will greatly benefit from the Europa
Universalis IV mechanics and the now polished Crusader Kings 2 mechanics.
At the time the
images that have shown up look great and remind me so much of the original Rome
games, there is no need to go for battles such as Total War, Total War is there
for those huge epic battles on the ground that you can enjoy from the shoulder
of the Legions you send down to cause havoc, no, we are here to enjoy the
massive intricacies of the military (with hopefully improved upgrade mechanics
that do not tie you to one update whenever the game feels like it and research
that was arbitrary as hell), political (I can already see the civic faction
breaking oh so many games, they broke so many of mine and caused so many
rebellions I would change the people in power five times before I got to
understand how the hell anything worked), diplomatic (hopefully as Rome you can
get some sweet casus belli to expand
your Empire all the way to Asia and also interesting decisions with your
neighbors so they don’t eat you alive from the get go such as that little devil
Pyrrhus breaking hell all over the shores of southern Italy) and religious
system (some of the bonuses were really broken and the fact that you could get
the total opposite to what you wished really made you think if you should even
consider it on your to-do list but if you did not do it then you were asking
for the religious faction on breaking your back every single time) of the Roman
Empire.
Other mechanics that
are coming back to my mind were the Legions your provincial Governors or Legate
would command a Legion which in turn would start to become loyal to him, on one
side this would be good because your treasury would be released from the much
needed money during the early state of the game, on the other hand these men had
become loyal to him so in case he rebelled they would stand by him no matter
what, this would lead to some very
interesting battles in which Legions would be fighting on the same square
against other members of the same Legion who had fought with them side by side.
The sea battles
were horrible, and I could never understand why the Romans would not capture
more ships once they had discovered the retractable arm they could throw onto
other ships, in real life this would give the Romans the advantage they needed
over their much larger Carthagian foes as their sailors were not ready to face
the might of the Roman Legion from ship to ship. The mechanics were oddly
clunky and I was always praying my transported troops would make it to wherever
they had to go because losing one of my Legions, any Legion, could cost me a bunch of territory.
Those barbarian
invasions were also a hell of an adventure to deal with, I would leave regional
legions (attached them to a local Governor who could be so useless at times) to
defend tracts of land such as northern Italy (the alps mostly and using the
bonuses of the mountains to my advantage) and fight the massive mothballs of up
to 100K barbarians, sure the slaves and money I would get from them would be absolutely
great and with the right politics you could get freedman and citizens in a considerably
breeze (quite some time to be honest) which would in turn help Civilization
push further out and bring the rest of the territories into being gloriously
Roman (because what else is better than to have 100 Civilization and be the
center of all European civilization, eh?)
As a Historian
with a formal education one of the things that drove me to study History were
the Total War and Europa Universalis games, I was amazed by the Roman and
Medieval eras and to this day they continue to be some of my interests as a
Historian, I also believe that teaching through videogames is one of the best
ways for the current generations to learn about the many interesting aspect of
Humanity (even if this vision is eurocentrist).
Now, if only
Paradox Interactive would take their time to rework that Sengoku game they
made, I know that would be another really interesting period to visit and while
we are at it, a Victoria 3 game, anyone?
