Imperator: Rome

I like the game. Maybe I'm not as a hardcore gamer like others anymore. But I'm really liking the game so far, seen maybe one or two minor buggs so far, but nothing that ruined the experience.

I would strongly recommend grabbing this while it's on sale. Many of the reviews of this game are very negative, and I understand why, but I'm going to try to temper those reviews a bit. It's very true that this game was extremely mediocre on release, but since then, the dev team have done an excellent job at updating and improving the game. They have shown the appropriate amount of boldness in doing away entirely with things that didn't work well, and an appropriate amount of subtleness in making small changes when needed. The updates have substantially changed and improved the game, and the roadmap for further developments is very promising. The DLC available so far, 1/2 of which is free (and the other half is pretty reasonably priced) adds a great deal of replayability, flavor, and interesting content to the game. I still have issues with this game, of course (the economy is kind of backwards in many ways from what classical antiquity really looked like) but these devs have gained my confidence in their ability to improve the game over time, the huge majority of which have been through free updates. I am a paradox veteran, I have 500+ hours on EUIII, EUIV, and Stellaris, but this is probably my favorite paradox game yet made, especially if the updates continue at their current pace and quality. I know paradox's DLC practices seem extreme, and for EUIV I think they genuinely are extreme. But games are expensive to make, and something has to fund the continuting development and update of niche GSG games after they're already sold, and paradox's DLC does that. Most of the content updates are free, and mostly the DLC which is available genuinely adds to the game and is usually reasonably priced. I offer Stellaris as my example of a DLC model that works well (while admittadly EUIV is one that works poorly.) Most of the negative reviews for this game are over 1 year old. It was essentially a completely different game at that time. I recommend you give it a chance

You really have to be into roman empire strategy settings for this one. Else just pass. As for completeness? ... Well, it's Paradox Interactive. They have a reall hand in turning every half-good franchise into a DLC money grab with a half baked base game and a crap load of DLC's you have to pay a pritty penny to get the complete experience (like they are NOT cheap at all). And on this game they even managed to srew up the GoG store shop front by not porpperly linking the DLC's to the base game - so you really have to search for them or else you easily miss them. This game just started out, there will be more, you just wait ... Be watchfull and study and way your options before purchasing (and I really mean you have to "study"). And always only get on discount during a sale if your are rally into it. If you don't get what I mean, as an example Steallaris, Surviving Mars, Prison Architect are the more extreme examples of this DLC-extorsion practice; Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Battletech lesser so but the DLCs for a complete experience still cost an eye and an arm adding to the base game cost; Europa Universalis 3 and Cities in Motion used to be the same but now finally have at least a "complete edition" upgrade for purchase. And even the upcoming Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2 that isn't even out yet, is set for an incomplete "base game" and a season pass expansion + Story pack 1 & 2 already. You see the picture here?

When it comes to track record of supporting non-Steam versions of their games, then Paradox is not doing very well. EU III and Victoria II on GOG have very strange case of expansions being clumped together like nowhere else. Crusader Kings II had it's non-Steam support drawn and replaced with Steam serial keys. When is that going to happen with Imperator Rome? What guarantees do we have that GOG version of Imperator Rome is going to stay on GOG and not replaced with Steam key? If you want to gamble with Paradox then go ahead - buy it and get ready to spend up to £500 or £6oo for all the DLCs on top of the base game. But if you just want to get the essential experience of what it feels to play Paradox games then get DLC Quest instead. Cheers!

I'm new to GOG and bought IR on Steam. My first mistake was not knowing about GOG, my second for assuming that IR would expand on EU Rome. I really enjoyed EU Rome but it had persistent bugs that caused frustrating CTDs. I also didn't realize that IR would be a DLC launcher with the base game almost empty. The game now appears to be a flop and it is unlikely that Paradox will spam DLC like some of their newer titles.