I won't pretend to know how this game works but I do know that I enjoy conquering land and assimilating the native pops to my primary culture.
Yes, I do start in Ireland.

>>2135877
You can move legions freely, while levies are more tied to the province. It starts to matter, when you have proper empire and you need to march your army from Babylonia to Italy.
>they're not any stronger either because Levies receive the same technology buffs.
Legions get distinctions, and you can stack many of them on each legion, making them better at combat.
Still, you can run pure levies, if you want to. Fighting against giga Rome that way might be quite a task. Not sure which one is more economically viable, but I'm guessing legions, since high pop places make the economy.

>>2135877
My biggest gripe with the game is how 80% of the map is literally who.
Rome, Etruria, Carthage, Epyrus, Greece, Egypt, Thrace, Macedon, the Antigonids... yes, all kino, but then the rest might as well be fantasy races.

>>2135928
>Fighting against giga Rome that way might be quite a task
Fighting against giga Rome is always a daunting task, no matter the way.
That's why the best way to defeat Rome is to crush them when they're still tiny. Nip it in the bud.

I almost defeated giga Rome as Syracusae by racking a lot of money through pillaging and paying off a ton of mercs, but my money ran out halfway and they stomped me

>>2135945
That is just a sad reality of playing in this setting. Many of these nations could barely write stuff down and the little they could write down would probably be destroyed by invading nations.

>>2135945
Ptolemy will remember that.

File: Let me tell you about Carthage.jpg (878 KB, 986x1369)

878 KB JPG

>>2135877
From the top of my head:
-You can choose their composition. You can put supply trains and engineers in it wich are essential for long sieges. And in this game stuff like heavy infantry and elephants are king. Plus some kind of units might synergize better with your countries military tradition. Carthage for example can get a shitton of elephants and then a military tradition who makes those elephants extremely cheap.
-You can drill them. This makes them take less damage in battle and provides you with steady military tradition.
-They build roads for as cheap as 10 gold per tile. This are fundamental if you have a large empire plus give you a number of bonuses. Including import routes in your capital.
On top of that you don't get war exhaustion with them unlike with levies, they can get distinction wich makes them better and you can choose their own generals with the better martial stat while the governor of the province can be chosen for his finesse to keep the province loyal.

>>2135951
>while the governor of the province can be chosen for his finesse to keep the province loyal.
Now that you mention it, when I choose a governor for a province the game shows me two stats: Finesse and Martial.
Why is this?
I think it's the only place in the entire game where two stats seem to matter. Usually it's just one.

Do I just ignore Martial for governors?

>>2135928
Beating giga-Rome is no problem because as soon as they conquer some place it's not their culture the whole republic enters a civil war every 10 years.

>>2135953
When you raise a levy the governor acts as the commander of the stack. So early game you want a balance of the two or maybe a higher martial governor, but later as I said you can focus on finesse if you have a dedicated professional army.

>>2135956
>When you raise a levy the governor acts as the commander of the stack
o shit
I did not realize that.
Thanks anon

>>2135957
No problem.
I think it's a pretty interesting system. And it's somehow similar to the military in EU V.

>>2135877
>Legions can't pillage cities
what the fuck? Is this true? Paradox is so fucking retarded

>>2135961
They do pillage them, but you only get the
>1 pop moves to YourCity as Slave, 1 pop killed
thing. You don't get the popup where you choose if you want to go easy on them, or fuck them up etc.

That one you only get if it's a levy AND the commander of that levy is the current ruler of your country (aka your character) AND his army was the one that had the biggest impact in capturing the city.

>>2135965
So yeah if you sack all of the cities in the delta of the Nile with levies, you leave a rich man.
You sack them with legions... you get a couple more pops and that's it.

>>2135967
>sack all of the cities in the delta of the Nile with levies, you leave a rich man.
So obviously you take advantage of this and game the system. This retarded bullshit is why the game is shit.

>>2136153
How is doing something good gaming the system? You're raiding cities, and making money off it. It makes sense.
And it's not like it's risk-free. You're still going to war with the Ptolemaics, and they have a fuckhuge navy to mess with your naval landing.

I don't think you played the game. I think you're talking out of your ass because you're a disagreeable midwit.

>>2136217
>I like being a childish bitch called out for gaming the system
>I will now proceed to seethe miserably while pressing the "I win" button!
>REEEEEE!

>>2136227
Yeah you didn't play it

>>2136230
>REEEE!

>>2136244
>shitposting

>>2135877
>I still don't get how Legions are supposed to be better than Levies.
Translation: I have no fucking clue how combat works in this game

>>2137899
>send levies to sack cities
>make shittons of money
>pay mercenaries

Literally WHY have legions?

What is the rationale behind not allowing legions to plunder cities for money? They did it all the time.

>>2137911
BECAUSE LEGIONS CAN WIPE THE FLOOR WITH LEVIES,YOU DUMB SHIT
A single fucking legion can wipe out 10x its size of levies and also sieges much fucking faster. And sieging is what wins you wars.

You dumb fucking moron
Have even played this game for more than an hour?

>>2137942
One word: mercs.

>>2137929
They do it, but keep the money for themselves. I think that's the in-lore reason.
I believe the general commanding it even gets more personal wealth. Even if it's your ruler (aka you) with legions it goes to his personal wealth, not the gubbment

>>2137951
Which are levies with insane upkeep. Literally the worst thing possible.
Legions are superior to any other army type, you dumb shit
It's 2025. What's your excuse you still don't know how combat works in this game?

>>2137957
>can only raise 1 legion unless you invest literally all the way down one research tree
>the bonus of legions is shit like engineers, but if you add them they take up manpower AKA you'll have less attacking troops

Also literally the only enemy that requires massive stacks is post mid-game Rome, and if you can take them then your economy is strong enough to handle a couple of 21k mercs plus your levies.

Legions are stronger for a couple aspects, and weaker for a ton more. Just have one tiny ass legion to build roads and farm exp and you're good. Let the levies and mercs handle the rest.

>b-but money!
Lmao no wonder you have money troubles. You can't sack cities!

>>2137958
lol, just lol if you don't strictly use the capital region's legion exclusively, and populationmaxx the capital region, and stack every single legion award on your entire army, which is hundreds of units, so that you can easily afford luxuries like engineers and rotating supply trains

>>2137975
teach me to populationmaxx

>>2135965
>>2135961
I could have sworn that you still got the popup if the legion commander was your heir in a monarchy

>>2137951
One word: meh
Mercs are just paid levies that are useful if you have low population and thus can't exactly get enough levies to beat your neighbours.
And if they are anything else than Scythians, they are shit-tier by design.
Speaking of Scythians: it's the only culture that has usable levies without any tricks or cheese. Everyone else is hauling between 40 to 70% of utterly useless, shit-tier units.
If you aren't Scythian, it's either getting a capital legion ASAP, or you are fucked. Especially if you are small, a well-made legion (HCav+HInf with LCav flanks works for almost all cultures you will be facing) allows you to go from a small fry with 26 territories to 2-3 regions within 20 years, suffering virtually no losses on your side. And ever since Marius made playing tall virtually impossible, you kinda have to expand across few regions.
With levies, you'd fuck your population into oblivion and pretty much have to plunder to stay afloat, decreasing value of land you are conquering and effectively being at a loss in the end.

As a side note - if population is your concern, play as Greekoids or at least a culture that can assimilate their traditions. Piracy is completely busted and if you know what you are doing, you can effortlessly farm just silly amount of slaves from all across the coastal territories (ALL of them, from Scotland to Bengal), without having to deal with pop-loss, since unlike plunder, piracy is a 1:1 deal. If only managing slaves wasn't so much of busywork micro, it would probably be the dominant strategy ever since ports can be build in each and every territory

>>2138342
I'll do a playthrough keeping these things in mind, but playing tall is absolutely doable (as long as "tall" doesn't mean you're a literal city-state).
You conquer your entire region, maybe another one, then get a decently sized levy. It works ONLY with levies, because the main income earner will be to sail those levies on a merc navy (or your own if you have it) and declaring war on people at the very edge of your diplomatic range.

Even better if you're allied with someone far away and they declare war with someone veeery far from your diplomatic range, because then it's free real estate: you sack their unwalled cities first, then the walled ones. If a big army shows up you fuck off back to your shipis and sail somewhere else. Slave raiding helps too.

>>2138346
>but playing tall is absolutely doable (
"Doable" and "workable" aren't the same. Pre-Marius, you could deliberately stay as a local power, and yet have your fun with it, while being able to fend off anything thrown at you. It also allowed you to keep a net of alliance of other local powers, so it was both fun to play and great RP tool.
Post-Marius, you either are a regional power (and thus have capital legion), or it's a counting clock until you get conquered. And once you are regional power, you might as well conquer your starting region whole, because you are not getting any benefits local power would have.
>You conquer your entire region
That's not tall, you dingus. Pre-Marius, you could be literal city state and still manage.

>>2138346
>>2138374
And speaking about how much Marius ruined Imperator:
Pre-Marius
>You're a rich and prosperous city state or a small, but compact power
>So are your allies
>You have a large league of similar subjects
>Whoever declares war on you, has to deal with the fact that you've got a large army (thanks to your population. it's concentration and wealth you are making from both of those)
>And your numerous allies, who can do the same
>Every strat is good, because going wide also works and you can still conquer and manouver around leagues
Post-Marius
>Hehe, map goes blob!
>Leagues are utterly fucking useless, leading to defeat in depth

Imperator has ONE thing going for itself: it was the only PDX game allowing for tall. And they've fucked it.
Deliberately so..
You don't blob post-Marius? You die.

>>2138380
I consider owning only one region to be "tall".
If you can't play tall as a single fucking city state I'm fine with that.
Imperator is the only PDX game where blobbing is fun, anyway.

And, again, I can play tall just fine with one region.

>>2138380
Classic blobbing is way more fun than alliance blobbing.
>Oh yeah I'm just going to sit here and watch numbers go up all game while hiding behind my horde of NPC allies!
>Expansion? Conquest? Developing new regions? That's called blobbing sweety and it's highly illegal!

>>2135960
euv seems like an extension of Imperator Rome. It makes sense since EU3 used mechanics first tested in Rome Universalis

>>2138014
>teach me to populationmaxx
Aqueducts give a flat amount of population capacity (less than 10) but use a building slot
For every 10 population, you get an additional building slot
Use the province improvements that add a multiplier for population capacity, such that aqueducts become self-supporting (each one provides 10 or more population capacity)
Then spam aqueducts.
Eventually you'll need to spam the province improvement to increase trade routes, because you'll need to import food.

>>2138507
>euv seems like an extension of Imperator Rome
This is why I'm excited for it.

>>2138507
And let's not forget it's literally called Project Caesar.

>>2138507
If you have played some Imperator:Rome you knen from they 1 they showed gameplay footage that EUV is basically a extremely heavely overahuled mod for I:V.

>>2135877
Are people still playing Imperator? I'm a Paradox autist and I love classical history so this game name my dick hard and I'll never stop being mad that they dropped it so early. It was basically shit at release, even by Paradox standards, but then that one big update really had things looking like they were going somewhere, but it was still incomplete as shit.

>>2138527
"Incomplete" is meaningless when the other more complete games are no fucking fun at all

>>2138532
I love EU and CK. I need to try Vicky 2 again.

>>2135877
>cannot pillage cities
Why not? They constantly pillaged.

>>2138527
You know they went back and patched it not long ago and most people think its good now? What do you need to actually finish it? Adding finnish and proto slavic tribes?

>>2138605
All armies, including legions, can pillage cities and settlements (where you enslave several pops and haul them away)
OP is referring to a specific event that fires when a levy commanded by your ruler (i.e. the capital regions levy) sacks a city (not a settlement) where you get several options as to how to badly to loot, giving you a decent bonus straight to your treasury. This event is separate from the chance to enslave some pops.
It’s nice early game, and is a big reason why I don’t spend my starting inventions on beelining for the legion law (I go for the theater and temple and foundry, then legion law), but legions are absolutely better and I’d never continue to use levies once legions are available.

Can we now move slaves from/to islands?

>>2138624
>You know
I did NOT know. I thought they'd said "fuck all y'all" and were never coming back to it.

>>2138983
>I did NOT know. I thought they'd said "fuck all y'all" and were never coming back to it.
This is true, but there's like one guy at Paradox that's been working on some minor patches for the last two years ago in his spare time. Mostly small bug fixes, and adding functionality for modders.
>t. Imperator enjoyer

>>2138380
Every paradox game is fundamentally a game about blobbing. Supporting blobing and making it engaging should be the purpose of the game's design.

>>2138527
Paradox games were always at their best after only a couple of years of "support" anyway.
When the core systems were set up and fleshed out, before they started ripping the game apart and randomly replacing mechanics with new ones.

>>2137942
>OMG I AM GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER MENTAL BREAKDOWN!
The post.

>>2138983
2.0 was a huge update m8.
There's also the invictus mod but imo it's overrated as hell

>>2139015
This.
I like Imperator because it's unabashedly about blobbing, and has mechanics to make it interesting.
Then you have games like CK3 that try really hard to pretend they're not about blobbing, yet it's the only thing to do really

>>2139056
Invictus adds a lot more buttons to click and sliders to look at which for lots of people enjoy greatly but others, like you and me, don't care a lot about.


>>2139057
I might be autistic as hell but I like just uniting all of Britannica and building it up while Rome blobs all across Europe

>>2139056
Nice what kind of shit did it add?

>>2139110
Look it up yourself faggot

>>2139072
>Invictus adds a lot more buttons to click and sliders to look at
wut
Did you actually play it?
99% of the mod is mission trees for countries that didn't have them, and the 1% is some innovations changed place in the research tree

>>2139237
:(

>>2135877
Legions build cheaper roads. I usually have a few legions of 1 Engineer, 1 Supply, 8 Light Infantry kicking around building roads. In war time, they sometimes become siege units while my levies do real work.
When my economy is fully off the ground, I'll have an actual legion that fights and stuff.

>Pillage cities
The commander with the highest martial is in charge of the siege.
You can attach a single unit of you capital levy to the siege stack and, as long as your ruler has the highest martial in the stack, you will get the pillage pop-up.
You could have 99 of 100 capital pops recruited to a legion, raise the single remaining levy, and attach it to the stack to let your ruler pillage things.
I usually detach the cavalry units from the capital levy for this purpose, or to run off and do an Anabasis to stop a province from being pissy, since light cav moves so fast.

>>2141315
Oh shit, neat!

>>2138687
>now
Nigga, that game didn't get a meaningful update in what? 3 years? 4?

So: tough fucking luck

>>2139015
>Every paradox game is fundamentally a game about blobbing
t. started with CK2 or later

>>2138453
Imagine if you could do OTHER things than painting your specific tone of beige-pastel color

>>2135877
They get experience and perks/traits making them better with time.
You can also control their composition and easily move them around.

>>2138397
I consider staying at Local power or City state to be tall
Pre-Marius, that was a perfectly viable gameplay.
Post-Marius, at the very least controlling fully your capital region is a bare basic of survival.

The weirdest part is that they've made a Syracuse-themed DLC, that supports pre-Marius gameplay heavily... and then dropped Marius. Now you can go fuck yourself with their own DLC.
And then people ask why Imperator failed and never truly recovered from bad PR

>>2141538
>they've made a Syracuse-themed DLC
no they didnt

>>2135945
Well that tends to happen when the extend of what we know about them is Polybius, Livy and etc writing the extend of "After 6 months of campaigning in the region T. Sempronius Flacius Manlius Camillus with his 2 legions defeated the pee poo tribe of Liguria" or something to that extent.

File: hqdefault (1).jpg (37 KB, 480x360)

37 KB JPG

>>2141545
>Syracuse-themed DLC
>no they didnt
Nigger, please

>>2146377
Shit my bad. I'm aware Syracuse is part of that region, but I didn't associate it with that DLC off the top of my head.

Are the DLCs any good by the way?
I love the game, but Invictus seems to have kind of stolen the DLC content and it works anyway?

>>2135877
>legion distinctions that can give you grand total of +4 martial
>being able to have an army that always has 100% military experience
>bonus movement speed
>easier to siege forts

>>2146684
>Are the DLCs any good by the way?
Pay 25 bucks for 2-4 mission trees and 1 new mechanic per DLC for a single country.
So just like everything I:R related - utter fucking dogshit.

>>2146710
Pro-tip: OP spend half of this thread trolling over how good levies are.

>>2146750
>So just like everything I:R related - utter fucking dogshit.
So then why is I:R the only fun PDX game?

>>2146838
>So then why is I:R the only fun PDX game?
They abandoned it before they could ruin it with years of DLC bloatmaxxing

File: 1754719760090749.jpg (65 KB, 616x353)

65 KB JPG

Speaking of this game seems like now, nations are limited when it comes to the amount of mercenaries hired.

How the fuck am I supposed to conquer anything if I cant have unlimited mercenaries?

>>2147877
Unlimited legions.

>>2147880
Before you even get that big, you need to conquer some shit.
Also legions eat manpower, citizens die.

>>2147882
Levies eat up pops.
Legions eat manpower, which is not working pops.

>>2147884
Anon, the entire legion of a small nation cant accomplish shit. People needed their mercs, but PDX nerfed it because players were complaining about small nations using their money to have a shitton of mercs.

What is the new solution?

>>2147888
Uh... "cant accomplish shit"? Like what, you complain you can't fight the entirety of Rome as a small city-state?
Expand, dumbass. Conquer smaller nations.

>>2147889
>Conquer smaller nations.

Even smaller nations are a challenge because they form defensive leagues and they all hire their own mercs and you get fucked.

>>2147891
AI small nations don't hire mercs, and you can still hire yours plus send your levy.

Also I just want to make sure you understand: levies and legios are two different things. You got that right?

>>2147893
>AI small nations don't hire mercs

Have you played the game recently (v 2.0.5)?
They do fucking hire mercs. Or maybe its the invictus mod at work but they do fucking hire mercs !

>>2147894
Why the fuck are you playing Trannyctus? It just adds a bunch of convoluted shit-ass missions.

The game's very much solvable still, just get good bro.

>>2147882
>>2147888
>>2147891
>>2147894
>I have a severe skill issue and zero understanding of game mechanics: The Series

>>2148267
Why yes, thats why I'm asking for advice you pleb.

>>2148293
1) Uninstall.exe
2) See point 1

>>2148297
>instead of promoting this great grame and encouraging people to play it, you do the opposite.

Lmao, no wonder it died with such cunts as playerbase

>>2148293
Is that why you were constantly contradicting the one guy giving you advice?

>>2135945
Skill issue. I recognise several tribes in Gaul because I read Gallic War by Julius Caesar. We know some of their history and culture thanks to him at least. I recommend to read that and then attempt to play as a tribe from Gaul.

>>2148334
sounds kino, will do if I have the time

>>2148334
There are also a lot of tribes in Iberia that are well known: Arevacia, Lusonia, Vasconia, Ibasim, Tartessia...

File: 546734568764.png (3.94 MB, 1691x1372)

3.94 MB PNG

>>2135877
I have no fucking idea how to play this shit, I'm constantly on the brink of a civil war, shit keeps rebelling, can't expand anymore because I'll implode, assimilation doesn't work, every character hates me. It's fucked.

I'm just sitting here and getting fucked by corruption and RNG events taking support from me. All I can do I walk around and build roads, that's it. I started integrating Etruscans because that seems to be the only way out of this hellhole, assimilation just doesn't work and I'm about to have a second fucking revolt where the entire Magna Graecia peels off from me.

>>2154062
have you considered putting competent people in your council

>>2154062
This game is by far the most easiest Paraslop game and its the only one thats fun
>Civil war!!!
kill them or brib them, you can give enemy families some retarded positions like research
>Corruption
Irrelevent since the ruler will literally die at some point, Tiranny wich is high for you is the thing you'd like to avoid cause it increase revolts and unstability
>assimilation just doesn't work
You should first spread your religion there first than they will integrate to your culture, or you can inslave them or give them special rights in the pop menu
>second fucking revolt
How is that bad? Now you can kill them in the war and decrease their pops, wich will allow you to bring in more roman citizens
Also why the fuck do you have 223 Political Power? you should be activally using PP , like I never passed 150 PP only to change laws

>>2154323
Not that guy (obviously because I know the game very well) but high tyranny is really good, same as for high war exhaustion.
Yes they have negatives, but they also have positives and they far outweigh them.

File: 567442356784.png (1.78 MB, 1016x1081)

1.78 MB PNG

>>2154323
Even if you give them positions on the council that's not gonna fix their low loyalty and the nigga in chief only has so much money for bribes. Corruption is bad for governors because it makes provinces more rebellious and the governors I kept placing in charge of Magna Graecia kept turning into comic book villains.
Can pops not assimilate if they have different religions? That's weird.
What do I even use PP for, I have all the laws I want and at that point in time I wouldn't have been able to pass any anyway. I can only think of provincial investments but they don't seem all that great.

Anyway, the revolt spawned, but it had basically no army whatsoever and Syracusae + my client states cleaned it all up for me. Based Etruscans stayed loyal to me in my darkest time, they shall become nobles.
I don't really get what happened, but the provinces there stopped being so pissed off and the number of levies from Magna Graecia keeps going up slowly, so I guess things are working out somewhat.

File: 8947656879.png (2.31 MB, 1868x832)

2.31 MB PNG

>all the geriatric nobility died off
>can't assign anybody to anything because all the notable characters are 10 year old zoomers
>can't even finish the transalpine gaul conquest mission because not a single member of Fabii or Cornelii families is old enough to be governor
I don't remember this episode from Roman history...

>>2154760
Convert religions first, assimilate cultures second.
Also what's giving them low loyalty exactly? There's got to be a reason, and you can see it by hovering over the loyalty icon

>>2155041
yea and if you don't micro manage peoples marriages, you might end up in a situation where there are no young people at all in your country

>>2154760
>Can pops not assimilate if they have different religions? That's weird.
They can, each location has a separate queue for one pop culture converting and one pop religion converting. However, it's faster for a foreign pop to convert religion then convert culture, than vice versa, so you want to encourage that.
>What do I even use PP for, I have all the laws I want and at that point in time I wouldn't have been able to pass any anyway. I can only think of provincial investments but they don't seem all that great.
Spam provincial investments in your capital, and spam stability.

Are you supposed to siege down each and every territory in Alexanders Legacy wars?
Every time I take a province capital it just relocates to another one

>>2161356
Playing Invictus by the way, the AI seem to be able to take entire provinces by sieging just one or two territories, but it doesn't happen for me even if there are no forts or enemy armies in the area

>>2161356
I think so

>>2161357
>Invictus
There's your problem. It's an overrated as fuck mod.
The only mod I use is dark UI

>>2161491
Yeah I'm playing as Antigonus right now and Mithridates Ktises is my heir over Demetrius because of "Modifiers"

>>2135903
based

Is Imperator Rome good now?

>>2165271
Only with the Invictus mod

>>2135877
WE ARE LEGION

>>2165271
Only without the Invictus Mod.