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Imperator rome government7/31/2023 ![]() All conflict is portrayed on the world map, where your army, represented as a dude with a spear, pokes at their dude with a spear for a while, and then the one with the bigger numbers usually wins – though things like unit discipline, morale, what units your armies are made up of, the upgrades you’ve acquired along the way, and several things that are immediately apparent (but easily accessible) matter, as well. You can make armies, sure, and send them to conquer neighboring lands (this is, after all, a game about empires), but you don’t get a battle sequence out of it. Imperator: Rome is enormously complex, but it doesn’t have a lot of traditional gameplay. You do all of this through a series of very complex but surprisingly easy to navigate and well laid out menus, each of which controls a specific area, such as religion, the military, the economy, etc. If you’re new to the genre, grand strategy games put you in command of a country and ask you to shepherd it throughout the ages, managing the economy, government, families, local factions, and war. You do all of this through a series of very complicated menus, each of which controls a specific area, such as religion, the military, the economy, etc." "Grand strategy games put you in command of a country and ask you to shepherd it throughout the ages, managing the economy, government, families, local factions, and war. Eventually, I figured out what I was doing, but I had to do a lot of learning on my own. ![]() I had to learn it myself by clicking through menus, reading text, and a couple dozen hours of trial and error. The game, however, didn’t teach me any of this. The buildings I built? They gave me greater access to military units, boosted my economy, helped defend my cities from attack, or increased my population, and eventually I learned how to tell which was which. Learning what it took to build these units also taught me how what each unit did, what they were strong and weak against, and how to tell what my opponent had at any given time. ![]() The ones I could build in certain areas and not others? Well, those areas had access to resources, either naturally or via trade, that those units require, like horses, elephants, or metals for certain weapons. I built the basic units because that was what I had the resources to build. And, spoiler alert: I eventually do figure it out. I’m not saying the fine folks at Paradox ascribe to the “throw someone into the scary end of the pool and watch them flail until they either die or don’t” mindset, but after a few hours in their tutorial, it sure felt that way. See, there’s two theories to teaching someone to swim: you can help them out, start in shallow water, and showing them the basics until they’re ready to try on their own, or you chuck them into the deep end and hope they’ll figure it out long enough to avoid drowning. But in the area between tutorials? I’m sinking fast, and Imperator: Rome either doesn’t know how to tell me how to do anything beyond the basics, or just doesn’t care. I’ve followed the instructions: made some dudes, made some ships, built some buildings, invaded and annexed another country, but really couldn’t tell you what units I built, or what they’re good at, or why I can build them in some places an not others, or what the buildings I built do, or how to do much of anything really, except whatever the next thing in the tutorial menu is, because the little prompts will at least try to tell me how. I’m halfway through Imperator: Rome’s tutorial and I have no idea what the hell I’m doing.
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