Conquered

IMPERATOR: ROME might be the grandest strategy of them all.

- Fraser Brown

Running a nation is dirty work. It necessitates bribery, blackmail, and occasionally spreading fear. You’re a parent, essentially. Imperator: Rome is Paradox’s latest grand strategy game, this time serving as a window into antiquity. You can pick a nation from the classical era and then paint the world one color: Yours. Supporting all that lovely global conquest, however, is one of the best internal politics systems the studio has designed, and one driven by characters. Assholes, every one of them.

Imperator is a follow-up to Europa Universalis: Rome, Paradox’s attempt to shake up the series’ broad grand strategy formula with some features from the original Crusader Kings and Victoria. The concept islargely the same, this time uniting systems from the most recent games, yet Imperator is more evolution than spin-off, and more cohesive than a ‘greatest hits’ compilation.

While you play a nation rather than an individual, your empire will still be full of them—ambitious, bickering aristocrats, all grasping at power, wealth and, judging by how often they die in flagrante, sex. They belong to families of varying importance, and can act as generals, politicians, and researchers, and while you have some control over them, they can push back in moments of unexpected autonomy.

They are essential to running the nation, but they’re also constantly clogging up the works with their plots and personal armies. They have aged me, but I still love all of my terrible Roman children.