Imperator: Rome Review (King Zapp)
I love Roman History. And I love Paradox Game Studios. But this game was a real heart breaker because it was neither a Rome game or a Paradox game.
I have watched countless hours of video and livestreams on this game. It was just SOOOO boring for me to pick up that I only ever played it twice. First time was for about 40 minutes, and the other time I made a "final big effort" and put a solid 6 hours into a game and have never been able to pick it up again...
The reason that this game failed is because it had no central core idea. It's not EU4 or CK3, and it's not a clever combination of the 2 either. You cannot Role Play, you can only "nation build" (but in the most generic and samey sense). If this was more like Crusader Kings it would give it more focus for it's pointlessly large scope. Imagine a game where you were battling for control with your family, overseeing provinces, leading specific armies with specific objectives, all while vying for more power in the senate (equally you are the king of the Celts and need to maintain your power and grow your nation) but with the more focused view on a family, I could find myself being much more invested in how the story plays out.
But instead it is this extremely unfocused, slow, nation building card game. Where the core mechanic is..... Expansion? But expansion is extremely unsatisfying. So it was extremely hard to find a point to keep playing on. There is already a Rome Total War series of games that are already fantastic Nation building expansion games based on war and minor politics. And Paradox was never going to top that with this series.
It was a huge missed opportunity for the team to really make an immersive, but massively large "rise of your dynasty" game. If this game was Crusader Kings, but set in Rome, it would have been significantly more successful and unique.