This was actually my finals week which is why I haven't posted on this thread for the last few weeks. I was going to celebrate passing all of my classes(some of them narrowly) by buying Imperator: Rome, but after learning more about it, it is really not that appealing to me, there were a few things in particular which disturbed me, especially how mana dependent this is. If I want my game to be run by mana I am going to play an RPG, not a grand strategy game.
Also in my mind I've associated it with Total War: Rome 2 which was also a big disappointment. Things that remind me of Total War: Rome 2 are the poor release, the extremely lackluster naval combat, the lack of variety, the poor character system and the fact that Paradox, much like Creative Assembly did not include features that other previous games had, despite having more time and resources than when they released those games. Two other disturbing comparisons are Urban Empire, the most disappointing Kalypso city management game and age of Civilizations II for its shallowness and focus on map painting.
The comparison with Urban Empire first came into my mind when I read this on the wiki: "If a nation wishes to instantly strengthen a faction's position in the Senate, it can spend oratory power to convince 10 seats to join that faction." While a leader shouldn't be powerless, he also should not be able to, instantly and arbitrarily, radically change the balance of power. This destroys the concept of an interactive political system. Real people simply do not radically alter their deeply held convictions because some charismatic figure gives pretty speeches and that is essentially what oratory power also known as scroll mana is, an arbitrary way for a ruler to enact whatever he likes based largely upon his charisma by persuading other people in the republic to support what you want.
Could you imagine if this was how things worked in real life American politics, no president would ever need to deal with a congress of an opposing parties. Trump could say, "Oh well, the Democrats do not want to let me build my wall, well fortunately I have a few hundred scroll mana in reserve, I'll just give speeches and the House Democrats will magically abandon their deeply held convictions and give back control of the House to my favorite faction, the Republicans and then they will vote for the wall." and then he would say something Trump-like about how he's so brilliant for discovering the yuge, great scroll mana and is now winning bigly.
This is a completely ridiculous example, but this is because the mechanic itself is ridiculous, oratory power should not be able to transform the balance of power instantly, arbitrarily and radically, just like no real life leader of a republic can unilaterally change the balance of power in this way. This reminded me of the game breaking appeal system from Urban Empire which took all the elements of political challenge from the game by allowing a mayor/president to just get whatever he wants even if the factions in the assembly theoretically hated what you proposed they would vote for it because you made an appeal to them. If a leader can get whatever he wants by talking in a game then what is the point of even including a political system?
I suppose it may have been a stretch to compare Imperator to Urban Empire, but for the imperator page in the steam store included in more like this is the game Urban Empire. Age of Civilizations II can justify its lack of depth and its focus on map painting by the fact that it is a $4.99 indie game, not a $39.99 release from a major game developer with experience in grand strategy. I don't think I will ever be able to get into Imperator and the fact that I have in my mind the comparisons to other games which were not fun will not improve my enjoyment. I see too many game breaking features in this game to enjoy it.
