In that this game also requires third party site registration. Another reviewer put in more detail, but succinctly, I deleted this game after the first attempt to play when I was bombarded with page after page of garbage detailing spyware and their harvesting of my personal data. Bad enough that games attempt to sell you on the notion that you didn't buy what you just paid for, but rather an extremely limited license with extended demands and conditions. Imperator: Rome goes a step and a half too far in that regard. If I don't own the game, and the game publisher is data mining me, then they should be paying me to play it - not the other way around. Out of 100 games in my GoG library, this is only the second I've requested a Refund over.
I have never before played a game that punished you so harshly and still left you alive. You are the primordial villager about to begin an epic quest, but starting out you are the weakest thing in the entire game. There is no newbie area with bunnies to grind on for levels. The moment you exit the starting (burnt out) town you will get throttled, have your last scrap of meat taken, and be left in a ditch to die. The remarkable thing is you get stronger for it. Kenshi is a game where you get invested in your characters. They are generic nobodies. They are villagers. They are slaves. You can get enslaved. Gather enough of these idiots and you can start a town. Bandits will raid your town. Raptors will eat your crops. Slavers will take everyone that's left, and you're back in chains again, but a little stronger than you were before. Of my troupe, I formed a core "adventuring party." Its size went from the initial 5 I farmed copper ore with (enough to buy basic gear and food to last another day) to 18, with the rest being sent on standby to hide inside a town owned by a xenophobic kingdom (they all are) that hated me because my skin wasn't grey and bumpy. I picked up a free recruit - lucky! - in a fishing village, and sent him halfway across the world on foot back to my safe house where people research, but mostly stand around a treasure chest filled with meat waiting for hunger to strike again. On his way, a pack of cannibals started chasing him. Cannibals are naked. They're awfully fast. I ditched his sword and armor - he couldn't win a fight anyway. That made him faster, and also naked. The cannibals caught up, but couldn't get far enough ahead to swing their swords, so they ran in a pack across national borders. I stopped adventuring with my core group for a solid hour to watch this race against being eaten. He made it, wounded. He ran into the capital of Women Suck, Rock on Brah. They hated him, but hated cannibals more. He was starving..
