I remember learning in history class about how after the Battle of Gaugamela the Persians finally gave in to Alexander, allowing him to take three small islands in the Aegean and a bit of Ionia. In the ensuing 15 year truce, Alexander the Great shat himself to death.
It shocks me how off the mark Imperator is in this regard. Everything about it's mechanics, from truces to peace deals, politics to war and everything in between, utterly fails to represent the era the game is set in. It's not just a dull, bare game; it all needs to be completely reworked mechanically to actually immerse the player in the idea that they are controlling a kingdom or republic that existed in the classical period. It's EU4/CK2 with a couple original ideas and a roman era coat of paint. Compared to something like CK3 or Stellaris, which have their own issues, it seems incredibly uninspired and lackluster. It really does seem like minimal effort or thought was given to Imperator before it was pushed out to die.
Thrace: **Calls their ally Macedon into war** Also Thrace: **Peaces out Getia and forces them to become Macedon's vassal against both their and Macedon's will raising Macedon's aggressive expansion to insane levels.** Ah yes. The negotiator.
March of the Eagles wasn't really hated on so much as it was very underwhelming when it came out and then people quickly forgot about it because EUIV came out later that year until TH-camrs dug it up years later to make fun of it. Same thing with Sengoku; no one really hated Sengoku as much as they were just bored with Sengoku. But with Imperator, multiple people have gone in-depth with how much they hate the mechanics of the game. The expectations for Imperator were much higher than for MotE and Sengoku since the scope of the game is much bigger, and because of that the backlash for it is much stronger.
I quite enjoy the early game, but at the end it just falls flat and is really boring. It's better than it used to be, but always room for improvements. Could be better 6/10
@Josh Ellsworth Well in EU4 you’re usually unmatched in late game, because of how much you probably expanded and dominated trade. Same thing goes for Imperator.
10:00 speaking of Total War, it's much easier to peace someone out in the actual Total War franchise. You don't have to go siege down every province in India because they somehow have Cyprus.
@@zerosuitsamus2340 To be fair Attila Total War is more of "survival game" than a tactical-empire building one so is normal that every enemy is out to completly try to rekt your shit
@@tomh4754 Yeah, I'm not against the idea, I just would have made it more organic as the constant denial of separate peace from factions who lost half their provinces and most their armies is quite annoying
As an aside; I believe when he said total war, he was referring to the concept of total war. Ie, a WW1/2 type of thing where the entirety of a nation's resources are leveraged in the pursuit of total victory, at any cost. Not necessarily the game.
Phillip II of Macedon: *Creates one of the best and most diciplined cavalry and infantry armies in the world, at a time when riding a horse without falling off was a challenge* ISP: *Makes fun of him*
AI : WE SHALL DEFEND OUR LAND AND OUR HOMES FROM THESE AGRESORS AT ALL COST, WE SHALL NEVER BE SUBJUGATED, WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER!!! Player: Dude can we peace out? I just want those three barrely habbited islands of my coast. I have defeated your army 50 times now.
Definitely the point on paradox making every game have every war have to be a total war is the main reason I got frustrated and stopped playing their games. In history very rarely did people have to do much more than achieve very limited objectives to win a war, and the fact it never happens in paradox games annoys me
Yeah, I mean IRL when Germany and Austria conceded in WW1 they actually had a ton of France and belgium still occupied, and hardly any of their land had been taken. It really shows how paper thin paradox games are at their core
@@nonono4347 well it's hard to somehow develop all of the strange intricacies that go into real life war especially thousands of years ago, and at the end of the day all anyone really wants at the core of it is to map paint, though ir could've done with a ticking war score or something to fix the slow moving wars issue
@@jamesmartinez7040 It's still better in this regard than any other paradox game I can think of, in CK you need to get 100% WS to get them to surrender, Victoria I can't remember, and in HOI you literally have the country at your feet and can do whatever you want with them
I feel like a CK2 kind of game would be better suited to this time-period, all the decadent funny business stuff that usually happens in CK2 happened naturally in most of the great Ancient Empires anyways
I don't know if grooming your dynasty in I:R could be as engaging as it is in CK2. Also taking away the complex intricacies of feudal politics would break any interest in the game
I enjoyed it for a while, but the missions get quite repetitive and I hit the turn limit really unexpectedly. I didn't look up what the turn limit was, presuming that I would have plenty of time to run into a massive Roman Empire, but the game ended when they were barely out of Cisalpine Gaul
@@jahbama6202 I'm pretty sure most historians say it was 2 million/13million which would be more like 15-20% of the gallic population. And half of the 2million were sold into slavery.
How the war for the islands would’ve gone in history: Messenger: “Sir, the Macedonians have taken our islands off the Isthmus of Corinth!” Phrygian king: “Our what?”
Maybe just maybe he might have used that as means to send his own army to fully subjugate the Macedonians (especially since at that point it was a Greek successor state from Alexander so the idea of reconquering his Empire was basically what these guys had in mind) but if that army got defeated he would probably just give up. Hell there wouldn't even really be a peace "deal" and more just he leaves and maybe sends a message like "ok you can have it".
the total war thing of EU4 is one reason while simplistic i prefer the CK2 combat way more. if u win a battle in a devestating manner in that game u get a huge boost to war score. also when u occupy the territory u go to war for u get ticking war score that goes up to 100% so u can just occupy those small islands and wait.
I see it looks very decent and is published by Slitherin so thank God for some kind of competition for Paradox. But Slytherin stamp is double-edged sword since it's turn-based. Until they'll grow some balls and make real-time medieval/WW2 grand-strategy they have no chance to be considered as Paradox's equals(I have nothing against turn-based games, I love very much Panzer Corps 2 and Total Wars but they need to beat Paradox on their own ground)
@@freddekl1102 AGEOD used to be a separate Paradox studio. They split up in the mid-2000s due to creative differences and AGEOD is based in France, I believe.
Honestly, this game hit the spot when Imperator failed miserably for me. You definitely need to read the manual but the decadence mechanic it uses is something I really enjoyed and there's a surprising difference between the factions. Certainly rough around the edges though so I think you'd need to be a lover of the era of history to tolerate enough to enjoy it.
I've tried playing it since 1.4 with a handful of mods. I've actually had a bit of fun. Whether the game meets the standards it should is still somewhat up for debate, but it's definitely getting there.
One day.... One day ... After Paradox make 12 dlc, this game will be good, You will probably spend like 300 dollars to play it, but one day. One day it will be a masterpiece.
@@Septimus_ii Yeah, but if you know paradox, and how much they love money... I meant adding extra history accurate content to the game. Then you know what's going to happen.
@@MTI_ They've said Imperator won't have expansions. It's gonna be free updates and like $8 content packs with a bit of flavour like missions, unit models, etc
"Aetelrugia, my chief, I must know: What is your secret to such an illustrious silver visage?" *squelching noises as Aetelrugia strokes his squishy beard knowingly*
Yeah Imperator needs to have a CK2 or Vic2 type war system where battles have a bigger role on war outcomes. That's one thing I really dont like about EU4 as well. I have to spend 10 years full siege a country just to take one province and war reparations
The game became more fun then before thats for sure. I played as Qataba a week ago and pretty sure that was the most fun playthrough I will ever have in the game. What bothered me the most was the fact that ever country in the African horn starts out with level 4 tech on everything, while everyone around them had level 0 tech (I have no idea why they were on the same level as Rome at the start of the game)
The phrygians, Egyptians, Selucids, and Macedonians were all claiming to be successors of Alexander’s Empire, they don’t want to surrender their foothold in Greece, because to them that would mean giving up their homeland and any chance of “reclaiming” Makedon for themselves(this is a historical way to view the events of this video)
9:11 "One single battle and it's over" Yeah, about that... the Peloponnesian War lasted twenty-seven years (431-404 BC) with the last decade or so being after the disaster of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse. The Romans were defeated time and time again in battle by Hannibal Barca in the Second Punic War - and not just at Cannae, either - but were able to keep raising new armies and ended up winning the war. For that matter, a similar thing happened in the First Punic War in terms of naval battles. Even after Alex the Alright shattered the Persian army and sent Darius III fleeing for his life at both Issus and Gaugamela, he still had to fight battles all the way to the eastern border of the Persian Empire. Then there's Pyrrhus of Epirus, who inflicted several defeats on Rome but ended up losing the war. For that matter, the Greeks inflicted a number of major defeats on the Persians but were unable to deal a decisive blow even after Plataea and Mycale until Alex the Possibly Great came on the scene. *tl;dr The idea of a single battle deciding an entire war only really applies when one or both sides throws everything into that single battle. If you're fighting against a power like Phrygia, you shouldn't really expect to get them to surrender after a single battle.* 9:50 Why would they? 14:24 He's the father of Alex the Pretty Nifty?
You're pointing at examples of the great powers, exceptional in their day. Yeah, the Romans managed to raise multiple armies when Hannibal kept destroying them. The Romans had the best military and civil organizations in the world at the time. The Persians survived more than one possibly climatic battle, because the Persian Empire was the largest empire the world had seen to that point. And the Peloponnese War lasted for 27 years because neither side could reach the other to destroy them- even Syracuse was not a decisive engagement. Campaigns could end in a single decisive battle (Or siege). The required both sides committing to a decisive engagement, which didn't always happen. When it did, the results for either side could be disastrous. Take, for example, Alexander the Dank's conquest of the Persian Empire. How many battles does he fight before walking into Susa and declaring himself King of Kings? Three. Grannicus, against the forces of the local Satraps, which destroyed Darius III's effective power over the area. Issus, against the Imperial Army, with Darius III at its head. He wins, shattering the army and sending Darius scrambling for a new army. And Gaugamela, where he scores his decisive victory over the Empire of Persia. Three battles. Three battles to take down the largest empire the world had ever seen. I dunno, seems to me that you don't need that many battles to happen to have an opponent give in during the ancient Hellenic or Roman periods.
@@veggiesblowup8785 The difference is Alexander was conquering, not fending off invading armies. He was not just beating the persians on the field, he was capturing their cities as well.
@@veggiesblowup8785 I'm not saying that occasions where a single battle could prove decisive in terms of a campaign or even a war _didn't_ happen, just that it wasn't as common as ISP seems to believe it was. And the reason I picked great power examples is that ISP was fighting a great power (Phrygia) when he was making his comments (that, and those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head). As a side note, I think it's possible that if Alexander had stopped his campaign after declaring himself _Shahanshah_ there might have been at least a remnant Persian empire that survived for a while afterwards.
Would be interesting if they add a mechanic where when you attack a vassal of an Overlord that there is a chance that they don't care. Considering factors like size of the vassal, range and the traits of the Overlord ruler
I tried it again I think it was the second patch. There were several times I went to war and despite both sides taking massive losses and obliterating manpower, it was a struggle to even sue for white peace. After a few hours, I thought, "Couldn't I just go play CK2 or EU4 or something?" and Alt + F4'd. I don't doubt it's better, but I feel like there should've been more time and love given to the game that just wasn't, and I'm not going to reinstall until I can say, "Okay. I would play this for more than two hours."
I bought I:R fairly recently and thought it was decent but needed more work. And now you're saying that basically everything which I enjoyed is new since launch!
One of the problems in this game is the fact that your nation manpower is available for recruitment every corner of your country. So you can recruit a army of 40k men on a tiny island even though no one lives there. They need to add a feature to raise armies where your general will go about in a state and recruit soldiers and create a army relative to the province development. This army will be disbanded when the war ends. The manpower are the men in your capital state who have signed up to your professional army. The provinces have their own manpower and governers create their own professional armies. They will also raise new armies during war.
"One of the weakest games to launch in the Paradox lineup" It's a wakeup call if nothing else. All Paradox games are cursed in the version 1.0, the state of CK2 at launch was just laughable, and a lot of the fixes involved you paying Paradox 15 bucks. That being said, Imperator still sucks.
I hate that shit in paradox grand strategy where you have to full siege shit down to get like 2 provinces that are thousands of kilometers from the center of your opponents kingdom
It would be awesome if the Warscore depended on the relative amount of territory you have to conquer to fulfill your cassus belli. That way if you wanted to humilliate them, you just have to win a couple of battles and reduce his armies, if you wanted a province, you'd just have to conquer and maybe keep those provinces for a year to win, and so on.
Its kinda weird how Paradox has deathstack meta deciding wars in a single battle in other games and the one where its sane and fits they change it to .. this.
Hey ISP recently I entered your discord server, and today at 1 am one of your bots sente a message in Another discord server (a server mine with some of my friends). I am the only one in that server that is in your discord and I don't know how and why that bot came to my server promoting one of your Last videos (the one when you where playing Imperator Rome). The real weird thing was that the bot appeared like it's was added by me but I didn't add the bot to my server. Now I send you some photos. Hope you will help me and my friends with this problem.
I am very fucking hungover, physically shaking and my head goddamn pounding, but I woke up to ISP playing imperator rome, which arguably makes this shit better
nah lol ck is completely different compared to other paradox games. its all about the rpg and story telling aspects. these other games really have no bearing on it
Yea I am afraid of that too. CK3 looks really brilliant and shiny now. But if it turns it is all shiny and has no flavor... the paradox will have a shitstorm like never before.
@@rickyrick2330 Flavor isn't the only problem, it's how that flavor is presented that worries me. They've already confirmed 3 major DLC's which will be at most $30 per DLC. Knowing this is Paradox I don't trust them one bit with that. Until I know for a fact I'm buying a full game for $40 and actual added on optional content (not mechanics which should've been in the base game) for the other $90 instead of a full game for $130 I am absolutely not trusting them and their absolutely horrible history regarding their DLC policy.
22nd of October, 551 An Egyptian Army numbering in the Tens of Thousands can be seen on the horizon; as their warships slowly move toward the coastline. Our doom approaches. 2nd of November, 552 Our shoreline is covered in the bodies of thousands of Egyptian Soldiers; I watched as their navy pulled away throwing bodies overboard in the dozens. Our mighty King, Heir of Alexander didn't have to lift a sword to defeat our foes. He merely sat inside one of our mighty temples soiling his diapers to appease the Gods of Olympus.
Just a comment about what is being talked about at around 9:30. I'd like to say, the Punic War lasted years and was also fought over what would amount to a few provinces. The Phrygians would likely have kept at war simply due to national pride, as well as the fact that the war was not in their land.
I'd somewhat agree with this but not the example of the punic wars. Sicily was a hugely important island strategically and economically and so was Iberia for its mineral wealth. That being said, I agree that Egypt wouldn't just hand over their Greek holdings and instead should have landed troops so it's more just bad AI
A better way to do wars would be an importance/relevance meter. It would take the power of both empires, total land of bother empires, current threat/rivalry, ratio of army, how much land they are taking, and relevance of the land. (So like two islands or land that's thousands of miles away is less relevant than a city, capital, or areas that are close to you capital ect. Then you have it only apply to AI and boom, more realistic wars. Now you no longer have an entire population mobilized and thrown at you for a could desert tiles, but also a strong force for let's say a religious title or heavily disputed tile. What do you think?
Rome should absolutely be scripted to fight Carthage, defeating them was one of their biggest endeavours and claims to fame since Carthage was the trade capital of the world at the time.
Defeating Carthage was the single most important event in Roman history. It allowed them to consolidate the Mediterranean after Macedon was beaten quickly following the 2nd Punic War. If anybody is interested listen to the History of Rome podcast.
I'm pretty sure there is an event for Rome which gives them claims on Carthage, and depending on the decision can trigger a war. I think one of their special missions is also about conquering Carthage. I'm not sure what the weighting is though for AI Rome to make the decisions go after Carthage though.
@@Macquarrie1999 Exactly. Maybe there should be three branches of missions for them representing the major conquests? Defeating Carthage, conquering Greece and the wars with the tribes in Gaul? Or at the very least the AI should be weighted to heavily favor those enemies. If they wanted to take a page out of CK2's book they could event spawn an army to represent Hannibal crossing the Alps.
I did not play it for long enough to gauge its historical accuracy. I do accounts for livings, so whilst agreeing that a successful bureaucracy is what makes an empire tick, like Napoleon said what determines the decades and centuries to come are the big battles. That is why his strategy like Alexander and most other leaders was to lure their enemies into one big decisive battle. Managing minutia whilst important is not strategy. So I am afraid as a Strategy Game I have Imperator down as a gigantic fail.
The main problem with the total war thing is that the AI gets 50 reasons to not peace out because they have 80 thousand troops in Syria "War balance looks good" when when their Greek islands have been sieged down for 2 years. If the war balance looks good feature was removed or at least decreased the AI would peace out very easily which I think is more ideal.
Eu4 isn’t only total war. If you seige an enemy capitol then they usually want to surrender. With offensive ideas and a barrage this can take a couple months. Siege down the rest of the country’s forts and you can demand basically anything you want. Killing armies in the field isn’t efficient but it wasn’t efficient irl as several nations had their populations devastated and kept fighting. Notably Rome who lost over 20% of their adult male population in a single battle against the Carthaginians and still demanded they surrender unconditionally
Wasn't Philip II. the father of Alexander the Great? Considering how they treated the corpse of Alexander, no wonder the remains of his father are sacred in this game
Really they need an indimidation factor to the game. So if you own a certain amount of land, and are considered really powerful and almost immortal against someone who has no allies and 1/10th of the territory you do, then there should be an option to easily threaten them into annexing them peacfully. Oh also, proxy wars really need to be a thing. Then you dont have to declare war on a vassal's overlord in order to get control of their small provinces.
@The Nova renaissance I still have hope for CK2 because they at-least have a previous game to build on (unlike IR which was built from nothing but what ever mechanics they liked from their previous titles) but I will not buy it at launch. I'll let others bite that bullet.
I’m enjoying it! The hook for me is spreading my culture and founding cities. Something enjoyable about founding a city in the middle of know where and watching it grow to a metropolis!
Well, imo imperator is an eu4 with less mechanics... Does that make it a bad game? No. But it kinda makes him an useless game, because eu4 has a lot of other mechanics.
The problem, this era of warfare was very different in the situation: greek states were small scale warfare, never going for full on war. Rome however allways went all in and conquered almost everything at once. It would be reasonable if there was way to wage a minor claim-war for small expansions (like CK2, for the Greek states or for roman-persian/roman-german wars) to represent these minor borderchanges and full on total war after which you can slice a chunck of the enemy (like eu4, for carthage v Rome).
Let's not forget, even though most wars were decided with one or two decisive battles, the Second Punic War should have been a Carthaginian victory. After Lake Trasimene, Cannae, and Trebia, Rome still won. The Roman Republic was legitimately in ruins when the war ended, mostly in southern Italy.
True that! I think people are a bit over sensetive about the mana situation in Imperator. Eu4 is mana-heavy but Imperator at launch was a mana game. Seems much better now!
I didn't get it at the start but got it recently, I don't see why it's so underrated. I've only really played as Rome but I've really enjoyed it so far, it's very smooth and feels like it has mix of eu4 ck2 and hoi4
From what I know about it, it's not bad, but it doesn't appeal to anyone in particular. For example, EUIV is a better map painter. CKIII is a better is a better rpg-ish dynasty simulator. Vic II is a better economics game. Also, the time period is not particularly interesting.
I think the real reason its bad is due to the balance of power and lack of internal games to occupy yourself with. Rome has basically Free Realestate in gual and Italy and parts of uppper Iberia. Same for Carthage in Africa and Iberia. The Successor States usually fragmenet or blob out making it the most interesting place to play in. But even with all the buffs Selucids and Plotemies usually die from rebellions and external pressures. The AI just isnt good enough to build up rising powers to match the player's snowball of conquests. So in the end it turns into curbstomps with a nation 10-50x the other's size noms the other.
@@MarcusDarkstar Meanwhile in EU4 Europe alone every major power has roughly 2 rivals. France has England/Austria/Spain/Ottomans. The Ottomans which is considered the best start still has rivals in the form of Austria/Hungary/PolandLithuania/Ejypt/QQ/AQ. Only place that has no direct rivals is Ming but they have internal issues and mandate. And you will usually always have rivals as a player, if you play as England, france or some other european power will always be a threat, Ottomans always have to worry if roided up Russia/Poland/France/Spain come knocking. The game gets more interesting up to the 1700s where it reaches absolute peak and usually a winner is decided by the last institution.
Well, what do you think. Is it good yet?
definitely not
Imho yes
no, just no
paradox please stop
Nah, needs more artillery
Give me a friend request on discord or March of the eagles will be good. D. Overlord#5262
I remember learning in history class about how after the Battle of Gaugamela the Persians finally gave in to Alexander, allowing him to take three small islands in the Aegean and a bit of Ionia. In the ensuing 15 year truce, Alexander the Great shat himself to death.
Underated Comment
Lmfaoo wait did he really shit himself to death I thought he died of Typhoid or some shit
Dude.. did you forget about Alexander's campaign to India after the war with the Persian was over? Only after this that he died...
@@X.Y.Z.07 it's a joke about the video
It shocks me how off the mark Imperator is in this regard.
Everything about it's mechanics, from truces to peace deals, politics to war and everything in between, utterly fails to represent the era the game is set in.
It's not just a dull, bare game; it all needs to be completely reworked mechanically to actually immerse the player in the idea that they are controlling a kingdom or republic that existed in the classical period.
It's EU4/CK2 with a couple original ideas and a roman era coat of paint. Compared to something like CK3 or Stellaris, which have their own issues, it seems incredibly uninspired and lackluster.
It really does seem like minimal effort or thought was given to Imperator before it was pushed out to die.
Thrace: **Calls their ally Macedon into war**
Also Thrace: **Peaces out Getia and forces them to become Macedon's vassal against both their and Macedon's will raising Macedon's aggressive expansion to insane levels.**
Ah yes. The negotiator.
Then Thrace breaks their alliance with Macedon lmao. Thats the best part.
@@MikesLeague just as planned
the negotitations were short.
5000 IQ man plays 7d chess
Imperator Rome is hardly the most hated paradox game, it's just the most hated paradox game in recent memory.
So which is it?
@@joevenespineli6389 *cough* march of the eagles *cough*
@@joevenespineli6389 Also EU: Rome
Ah
@@Nimbleturkey EU Rome was based though
*Most hated paradox game*
Did you forget about March of the Eagles?
@The Nova renaissance march of the eagle was fortunate enough to be forgoten.
There is no such game, it is a lie, a conspiracy! Everyone knows that March of the Eagles is urban legend
March of the Eagles may be worse, but it didn't have the hype or excitement that this did.
March of the Eagles wasn't really hated on so much as it was very underwhelming when it came out and then people quickly forgot about it because EUIV came out later that year until TH-camrs dug it up years later to make fun of it. Same thing with Sengoku; no one really hated Sengoku as much as they were just bored with Sengoku. But with Imperator, multiple people have gone in-depth with how much they hate the mechanics of the game. The expectations for Imperator were much higher than for MotE and Sengoku since the scope of the game is much bigger, and because of that the backlash for it is much stronger.
Boku no Gentoo I'd love to see iSorrow check out Sengoku, the forgotten game
I quite enjoy the early game, but at the end it just falls flat and is really boring.
It's better than it used to be, but always room for improvements. Could be better 6/10
I agree, once you get going it’s just a steam roll. Starting as a small eastern kingdom is usually fun because the world burns around you
So in short just like Eu4?
@@user-wh8co2wi4y I mean in EU4 there's usually some competition. You're usually never the only strong country unless you play the big blue blob
@Josh Ellsworth Well in EU4 you’re usually unmatched in late game, because of how much you probably expanded and dominated trade. Same thing goes for Imperator.
Just like Hoi4...
10:00 speaking of Total War, it's much easier to peace someone out in the actual Total War franchise. You don't have to go siege down every province in India because they somehow have Cyprus.
ZechsMerquise73 Not if you play Attila Total War when some Arabian tribe declare war on you as the Western Roman Empire.
@@zerosuitsamus2340 To be fair Attila Total War is more of "survival game" than a tactical-empire building one so is normal that every enemy is out to completly try to rekt your shit
@@zerosuitsamus2340 Or Shogun 2, damn RD is dumb
@@tomh4754 Yeah, I'm not against the idea, I just would have made it more organic as the constant denial of separate peace from factions who lost half their provinces and most their armies is quite annoying
As an aside; I believe when he said total war, he was referring to the concept of total war. Ie, a WW1/2 type of thing where the entirety of a nation's resources are leveraged in the pursuit of total victory, at any cost. Not necessarily the game.
Phillip II of Macedon: *Creates one of the best and most diciplined cavalry and infantry armies in the world, at a time when riding a horse without falling off was a challenge*
ISP: *Makes fun of him*
Col
He’s T-Posing to establish dominance over Phillip II
To be fair, he makes fun of everyone, even himself
Matheus Pereira especially himself
I think today riding a horse without falling off is a challenge
Sustained: C#3 and G#3
Plink: D#6
God is not dead after all
The return of the King
The hero we need, not the hero we deserve. Please don't abandon us again daddy.
HES BACK
All hail!
I love the fact Carthage is hogging the entire Sardinian coast. We found our Croatia of the game
You still alive kim young un?
@@niklas507 the great leader is ethernal
@@10011110011 I'm sorry that I questioned this. Long live North Korea, death to capitalism.
Goulag tips??
@@zacharyrobichaud5876 don't kill dogs
ISP in 2030: Returning to the most hated paradox game - Imperator Rome: Is it good yet
he wont survive for the next 10 years
And the answer will be N O
Hoo Lee Sheet nah he just won’t post in the next 10 years
AI : WE SHALL DEFEND OUR LAND AND OUR HOMES FROM THESE AGRESORS AT ALL COST, WE SHALL NEVER BE SUBJUGATED, WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER!!! Player: Dude can we peace out? I just want those three barrely habbited islands of my coast. I have defeated your army 50 times now.
@@CARILYNF Or Spanish, or Portuguese, or Italian, heck maybe another half dozen languages idk
I too like my Intelligent Artificials
"Jesus doesn't exist yet" I guess *loving Jesus* isn't *legal yet*
I've seen you 3 times today. I've only watched 3 videos. WTF?
Is this a bill wurtz reference?
It won't be until long after he does exist either, so... ;)
IS THAT A MOTHERFUCKING BILL WURTZ REFERENCE
You again.
Definitely the point on paradox making every game have every war have to be a total war is the main reason I got frustrated and stopped playing their games. In history very rarely did people have to do much more than achieve very limited objectives to win a war, and the fact it never happens in paradox games annoys me
In eu4 u can litterally just take the objective and win the war
@@christianedwall2488 Except you need to control a fort for them to ever concede the province.
Yeah, I mean IRL when Germany and Austria conceded in WW1 they actually had a ton of France and belgium still occupied, and hardly any of their land had been taken. It really shows how paper thin paradox games are at their core
@@nonono4347 well it's hard to somehow develop all of the strange intricacies that go into real life war especially thousands of years ago, and at the end of the day all anyone really wants at the core of it is to map paint, though ir could've done with a ticking war score or something to fix the slow moving wars issue
@@jamesmartinez7040 It's still better in this regard than any other paradox game I can think of, in CK you need to get 100% WS to get them to surrender, Victoria I can't remember, and in HOI you literally have the country at your feet and can do whatever you want with them
I feel like a CK2 kind of game would be better suited to this time-period, all the decadent funny business stuff that usually happens in CK2 happened naturally in most of the great Ancient Empires anyways
hell naw ck2 is a medieval the sims where u can battle people
@@leobrz did you even played ck2 ?
I don't know if grooming your dynasty in I:R could be as engaging as it is in CK2. Also taking away the complex intricacies of feudal politics would break any interest in the game
Sire Triste
But there would be more historically accurate incest in I:R
@@leobrz There is actually a medieval sims game, named The Sims Medieval, and you can actually fight people there.
I actually really enjoy playing Imperator in its current state
Weirdo
If they fixed OP Phrygia and add a scripted partition of Phrygia it would be pretty good by now.
Blocked
EpicForce blocked
I enjoyed it for a while, but the missions get quite repetitive and I hit the turn limit really unexpectedly. I didn't look up what the turn limit was, presuming that I would have plenty of time to run into a massive Roman Empire, but the game ended when they were barely out of Cisalpine Gaul
wasnt it an epic gamer moment when caesar marched on rome
dumb
Yeah he really did a "pro gamer move" there
I was watching it in the stream that day, good times
it was so gamer when he wiped out 1/3 of the gallic population
@@jahbama6202 I'm pretty sure most historians say it was 2 million/13million which would be more like 15-20% of the gallic population. And half of the 2million were sold into slavery.
Isorrow this isn’t March of the eagles, I was expecting the worst Paradox game. I've been lied to for watch time.
You and me both. I was almost sure it was March of the Eagles until I actually started watching the video
same
What do you mean expecting march of the eagles? Are you saying that the BEST DAMN MAP GAME IN THE UNIVERSE March of the Eagles, is bad?
Honestly March of the eagles was better than imperator Rome at the start
He said most hated, not worst :)
How the war for the islands would’ve gone in history:
Messenger: “Sir, the Macedonians have taken our islands off the Isthmus of Corinth!”
Phrygian king: “Our what?”
Maybe just maybe he might have used that as means to send his own army to fully subjugate the Macedonians (especially since at that point it was a Greek successor state from Alexander so the idea of reconquering his Empire was basically what these guys had in mind) but if that army got defeated he would probably just give up. Hell there wouldn't even really be a peace "deal" and more just he leaves and maybe sends a message like "ok you can have it".
"Wars could be won in a single major battle in this era"
Hannibal Barca might have some opinions about that statement.
Egyptian sailors remember the fateful day when several thousands of their compatriots starved to death on their ships
the total war thing of EU4 is one reason while simplistic i prefer the CK2 combat way more. if u win a battle in a devestating manner in that game u get a huge boost to war score. also when u occupy the territory u go to war for u get ticking war score that goes up to 100% so u can just occupy those small islands and wait.
Check out field of glory: empires, it’s ageod’s answer to imperator Rome released in 2019 and is quite in depth.
I see it looks very decent and is published by Slitherin so thank God for some kind of competition for Paradox. But Slytherin stamp is double-edged sword since it's turn-based.
Until they'll grow some balls and make real-time medieval/WW2 grand-strategy they have no chance to be considered as Paradox's equals(I have nothing against turn-based games, I love very much Panzer Corps 2 and Total Wars but they need to beat Paradox on their own ground)
@@freddekl1102 AGEOD used to be a separate Paradox studio. They split up in the mid-2000s due to creative differences and AGEOD is based in France, I believe.
Honestly, this game hit the spot when Imperator failed miserably for me. You definitely need to read the manual but the decadence mechanic it uses is something I really enjoyed and there's a surprising difference between the factions. Certainly rough around the edges though so I think you'd need to be a lover of the era of history to tolerate enough to enjoy it.
I've tried playing it since 1.4 with a handful of mods. I've actually had a bit of fun. Whether the game meets the standards it should is still somewhat up for debate, but it's definitely getting there.
Carthage lost Sicily, so there's nothing for Rome and Carthage to actually fight over.
One day.... One day
... After Paradox make 12 dlc, this game will be good,
You will probably spend like 300 dollars to play it, but one day. One day it will be a masterpiece.
They've made it decent for free
@@Septimus_ii Yeah, but if you know paradox, and how much they love money... I meant adding extra history accurate content to the game. Then you know what's going to happen.
@@MTI_ They've said Imperator won't have expansions. It's gonna be free updates and like $8 content packs with a bit of flavour like missions, unit models, etc
@@abadlydrawncoke4016 Maybe they are trialling a new, less DLC-heavy approach and seeing how it compares with their mainline cashcows.
They're actually testing subscription based system in eu 4 right now. Like you get all the dlcs for 5$/month
Playing Macedon and not even conquering into India
imperator/10
weak AF
@@AxxLAfriku Idk
March of the Eagles : Finally a worse game our battle will be legendary!
Play Gary Grigsby's War in the East
Stuff 96 that game is so expensive
@@zacharyhoyte493 Not when you buy it at 70% off. Panzers, vor!
It’s still the worst game ever because they added danish tribes
What the hell does danish mean?
@@infinitememegod its like a pastry
Denmark isnt real paradox!! 😠😡
Daniel Danish tribes? Are you talking about air
What is that ? I never heard about any danish tribe or country, FUCK, i dont even know what is a Danish or what that means
Can say, as of today, game is finally good.
"Aetelrugia, my chief, I must know: What is your secret to such an illustrious silver visage?"
*squelching noises as Aetelrugia strokes his squishy beard knowingly*
3:27 It would if Paradox allowed us to play till Constantine
Now with Invictus please make an Imperator video. Can't wait for Swimmy's imperator stream soon
Yeah Imperator needs to have a CK2 or Vic2 type war system where battles have a bigger role on war outcomes. That's one thing I really dont like about EU4 as well. I have to spend 10 years full siege a country just to take one province and war reparations
12:53
Oh no. Cornovia Virus sweeping England...
The game became more fun then before thats for sure.
I played as Qataba a week ago and pretty sure that was the most fun playthrough I will ever have in the game.
What bothered me the most was the fact that ever country in the African horn starts out with level 4 tech on everything, while everyone around them had level 0 tech (I have no idea why they were on the same level as Rome at the start of the game)
The phrygians, Egyptians, Selucids, and Macedonians were all claiming to be successors of Alexander’s Empire, they don’t want to surrender their foothold in Greece, because to them that would mean giving up their homeland and any chance of “reclaiming” Makedon for themselves(this is a historical way to view the events of this video)
"India? Who cares"
-Alexander the Great's men, probably
9:11 "One single battle and it's over" Yeah, about that... the Peloponnesian War lasted twenty-seven years (431-404 BC) with the last decade or so being after the disaster of the Athenian expedition to Syracuse. The Romans were defeated time and time again in battle by Hannibal Barca in the Second Punic War - and not just at Cannae, either - but were able to keep raising new armies and ended up winning the war. For that matter, a similar thing happened in the First Punic War in terms of naval battles. Even after Alex the Alright shattered the Persian army and sent Darius III fleeing for his life at both Issus and Gaugamela, he still had to fight battles all the way to the eastern border of the Persian Empire. Then there's Pyrrhus of Epirus, who inflicted several defeats on Rome but ended up losing the war. For that matter, the Greeks inflicted a number of major defeats on the Persians but were unable to deal a decisive blow even after Plataea and Mycale until Alex the Possibly Great came on the scene. *tl;dr The idea of a single battle deciding an entire war only really applies when one or both sides throws everything into that single battle. If you're fighting against a power like Phrygia, you shouldn't really expect to get them to surrender after a single battle.*
9:50 Why would they?
14:24 He's the father of Alex the Pretty Nifty?
You're pointing at examples of the great powers, exceptional in their day. Yeah, the Romans managed to raise multiple armies when Hannibal kept destroying them. The Romans had the best military and civil organizations in the world at the time. The Persians survived more than one possibly climatic battle, because the Persian Empire was the largest empire the world had seen to that point. And the Peloponnese War lasted for 27 years because neither side could reach the other to destroy them- even Syracuse was not a decisive engagement.
Campaigns could end in a single decisive battle (Or siege). The required both sides committing to a decisive engagement, which didn't always happen. When it did, the results for either side could be disastrous. Take, for example, Alexander the Dank's conquest of the Persian Empire. How many battles does he fight before walking into Susa and declaring himself King of Kings? Three. Grannicus, against the forces of the local Satraps, which destroyed Darius III's effective power over the area. Issus, against the Imperial Army, with Darius III at its head. He wins, shattering the army and sending Darius scrambling for a new army. And Gaugamela, where he scores his decisive victory over the Empire of Persia.
Three battles. Three battles to take down the largest empire the world had ever seen. I dunno, seems to me that you don't need that many battles to happen to have an opponent give in during the ancient Hellenic or Roman periods.
@@veggiesblowup8785 The difference is Alexander was conquering, not fending off invading armies. He was not just beating the persians on the field, he was capturing their cities as well.
@@veggiesblowup8785 I'm not saying that occasions where a single battle could prove decisive in terms of a campaign or even a war _didn't_ happen, just that it wasn't as common as ISP seems to believe it was. And the reason I picked great power examples is that ISP was fighting a great power (Phrygia) when he was making his comments (that, and those were the ones I could think of off the top of my head).
As a side note, I think it's possible that if Alexander had stopped his campaign after declaring himself _Shahanshah_ there might have been at least a remnant Persian empire that survived for a while afterwards.
thanks for making my day and uploading this!
Love you my man
Would be interesting if they add a mechanic where when you attack a vassal of an Overlord that there is a chance that they don't care. Considering factors like size of the vassal, range and the traits of the Overlord ruler
Me WATCHING this game, meanwhile go back to ho14
*And that world is now The man in the high castle**
I tried it again I think it was the second patch. There were several times I went to war and despite both sides taking massive losses and obliterating manpower, it was a struggle to even sue for white peace. After a few hours, I thought, "Couldn't I just go play CK2 or EU4 or something?" and Alt + F4'd. I don't doubt it's better, but I feel like there should've been more time and love given to the game that just wasn't, and I'm not going to reinstall until I can say, "Okay. I would play this for more than two hours."
I bought I:R fairly recently and thought it was decent but needed more work. And now you're saying that basically everything which I enjoyed is new since launch!
One of the problems in this game is the fact that your nation manpower is available for recruitment every corner of your country. So you can recruit a army of 40k men on a tiny island even though no one lives there. They need to add a feature to raise armies where your general will go about in a state and recruit soldiers and create a army relative to the province development. This army will be disbanded when the war ends. The manpower are the men in your capital state who have signed up to your professional army. The provinces have their own manpower and governers create their own professional armies. They will also raise new armies during war.
oh
9:05 I totally fucking agree! Wars just are so annoying since you never really destroy armies
You can enable auto-trade in the trade screen.
Notification squad roll call!
here
Here
Here
Jere
Here
"One of the weakest games to launch in the Paradox lineup"
It's a wakeup call if nothing else. All Paradox games are cursed in the version 1.0, the state of CK2 at launch was just laughable, and a lot of the fixes involved you paying Paradox 15 bucks.
That being said, Imperator still sucks.
ck2 was buggy as hell but fun and unique when it came out. It was a lot more difficult too since every dlc has made ck2 easier
Yeah, plus this like not a good game at all, plays like a EU4 mod
HOI4 struggled at launch, but it really didn't take long to improve significantly iirc.
@@101jir HOI4 at least felt like a complete product at launch. Lacking in flavor perhaps, but for a WW2 game, everything that needed to be there was.
@@theflyingnarwhal_4851 Feature wise, yes. Like a lot of games, I felt the bugs were a bit much. That said, I could still enjoy it even then.
March of the eagles: How dare you challenge me!
I hate that shit in paradox grand strategy where you have to full siege shit down to get like 2 provinces that are thousands of kilometers from the center of your opponents kingdom
They could add a local war where you have to gain war score for an area instead of the entire empire. That way you can take those islands...
It would be awesome if the Warscore depended on the relative amount of territory you have to conquer to fulfill your cassus belli. That way if you wanted to humilliate them, you just have to win a couple of battles and reduce his armies, if you wanted a province, you'd just have to conquer and maybe keep those provinces for a year to win, and so on.
Now after the extra updates, I think it's good now. Sad they're putting it on break right after fixing it up.
Its kinda weird how Paradox has deathstack meta deciding wars in a single battle in other games and the one where its sane and fits they change it to .. this.
Hey ISP recently I entered your discord server, and today at 1 am one of your bots sente a message in Another discord server (a server mine with some of my friends). I am the only one in that server that is in your discord and I don't know how and why that bot came to my server promoting one of your Last videos (the one when you where playing Imperator Rome). The real weird thing was that the bot appeared like it's was added by me but I didn't add the bot to my server. Now I send you some photos. Hope you will help me and my friends with this problem.
Vai gabri
Asurasina
Nn mi fa mettere like
Ok
Ciao ISP aiutaci
Ayo Updated 2.0 launched. Im sure you already know that but just in case Im gonna remind you :) Seems worthy of a video dont you think?
Imperator is EVOLVING
I am very fucking hungover, physically shaking and my head goddamn pounding, but I woke up to ISP playing imperator rome, which arguably makes this shit better
This game, among many other reasons, is why I have a hunch that CK3 is going to crash and burn when it is released.
nah lol ck is completely different compared to other paradox games. its all about the rpg and story telling aspects. these other games really have no bearing on it
Yea I am afraid of that too. CK3 looks really brilliant and shiny now. But if it turns it is all shiny and has no flavor... the paradox will have a shitstorm like never before.
@@_sky_3123 its literally all flavor have you been reading the dev diaries?
@@rickyrick2330 I just want to blob in ck3 I'd be fine if it was just ck2 with better graphics.
@@rickyrick2330 Flavor isn't the only problem, it's how that flavor is presented that worries me. They've already confirmed 3 major DLC's which will be at most $30 per DLC. Knowing this is Paradox I don't trust them one bit with that. Until I know for a fact I'm buying a full game for $40 and actual added on optional content (not mechanics which should've been in the base game) for the other $90 instead of a full game for $130 I am absolutely not trusting them and their absolutely horrible history regarding their DLC policy.
You should of waited for 1.5, it looks really good and 1.4 wasnt that great anyway.
Also 1.6 is supposed to update warfare
22nd of October, 551
An Egyptian Army numbering in the Tens of Thousands can be seen on the horizon; as their warships slowly move toward the coastline. Our doom approaches.
2nd of November, 552
Our shoreline is covered in the bodies of thousands of Egyptian Soldiers; I watched as their navy pulled away throwing bodies overboard in the dozens. Our mighty King, Heir of Alexander didn't have to lift a sword to defeat our foes. He merely sat inside one of our mighty temples soiling his diapers to appease the Gods of Olympus.
8:22 winston churchill responding to the bengal famine circa 1943
Just a comment about what is being talked about at around 9:30. I'd like to say, the Punic War lasted years and was also fought over what would amount to a few provinces. The Phrygians would likely have kept at war simply due to national pride, as well as the fact that the war was not in their land.
I'd somewhat agree with this but not the example of the punic wars. Sicily was a hugely important island strategically and economically and so was Iberia for its mineral wealth. That being said, I agree that Egypt wouldn't just hand over their Greek holdings and instead should have landed troops so it's more just bad AI
4:11 "It's not the Chinese, it's the Greeks he's after."
0/10, didn't play as the glorious Boi
in 3 months isp will return to imperator and he will, once again, without fail, ask if they removed taking money in peace deals
FYRM bois are screeching at those historically accurate starting borders.
A better way to do wars would be an importance/relevance meter. It would take the power of both empires, total land of bother empires, current threat/rivalry, ratio of army, how much land they are taking, and relevance of the land. (So like two islands or land that's thousands of miles away is less relevant than a city, capital, or areas that are close to you capital ect.
Then you have it only apply to AI and boom, more realistic wars. Now you no longer have an entire population mobilized and thrown at you for a could desert tiles, but also a strong force for let's say a religious title or heavily disputed tile.
What do you think?
Rome should absolutely be scripted to fight Carthage, defeating them was one of their biggest endeavours and claims to fame since Carthage was the trade capital of the world at the time.
Defeating Carthage was the single most important event in Roman history. It allowed them to consolidate the Mediterranean after Macedon was beaten quickly following the 2nd Punic War. If anybody is interested listen to the History of Rome podcast.
I'm pretty sure there is an event for Rome which gives them claims on Carthage, and depending on the decision can trigger a war. I think one of their special missions is also about conquering Carthage. I'm not sure what the weighting is though for AI Rome to make the decisions go after Carthage though.
@@Macquarrie1999 Exactly. Maybe there should be three branches of missions for them representing the major conquests? Defeating Carthage, conquering Greece and the wars with the tribes in Gaul? Or at the very least the AI should be weighted to heavily favor those enemies. If they wanted to take a page out of CK2's book they could event spawn an army to represent Hannibal crossing the Alps.
I did not play it for long enough to gauge its historical accuracy. I do accounts for livings, so whilst agreeing that a successful bureaucracy is what makes an empire tick, like Napoleon said what determines the decades and centuries to come are the big battles. That is why his strategy like Alexander and most other leaders was to lure their enemies into one big decisive battle. Managing minutia whilst important is not strategy. So I am afraid as a Strategy Game I have Imperator down as a gigantic fail.
The main problem with the total war thing is that the AI gets 50 reasons to not peace out because they have 80 thousand troops in Syria "War balance looks good" when when their Greek islands have been sieged down for 2 years. If the war balance looks good feature was removed or at least decreased the AI would peace out very easily which I think is more ideal.
"We're at a point in history where a battle can decide an entire war."
*Looks over at Cannae*
... Eeeeeeeh.
battle of Ipsus
Eyyyyyyyyy
Battle of Thermopylae, greeks lost but won war
@@superguy911 *Sad in Salamis*
aw i cannae baeleef ye wud fookin sae tat
Eu4 isn’t only total war. If you seige an enemy capitol then they usually want to surrender. With offensive ideas and a barrage this can take a couple months. Siege down the rest of the country’s forts and you can demand basically anything you want. Killing armies in the field isn’t efficient but it wasn’t efficient irl as several nations had their populations devastated and kept fighting. Notably Rome who lost over 20% of their adult male population in a single battle against the Carthaginians and still demanded they surrender unconditionally
Wasn't Philip II. the father of Alexander the Great?
Considering how they treated the corpse of Alexander, no wonder the remains of his father are sacred in this game
Imperator Rome ahh this game from 2019 that looks like it was realesed back in 2004, yeah.
In all honesty this has become slightly better than march of the eagles
Hey those islands were major trading hubs.
I've been waiting for you, I brought you flowers
Really they need an indimidation factor to the game. So if you own a certain amount of land, and are considered really powerful and almost immortal against someone who has no allies and 1/10th of the territory you do, then there should be an option to easily threaten them into annexing them peacfully.
Oh also, proxy wars really need to be a thing. Then you dont have to declare war on a vassal's overlord in order to get control of their small provinces.
I am so scared for ck3. Ck2 is one if my favourite games but after this and the dev diaries it feels a little empty
@The Nova renaissance I still have hope for CK2 because they at-least have a previous game to build on (unlike IR which was built from nothing but what ever mechanics they liked from their previous titles) but I will not buy it at launch. I'll let others bite that bullet.
I’m enjoying it! The hook for me is spreading my culture and founding cities. Something enjoyable about founding a city in the middle of know where and watching it grow to a metropolis!
The next update, according to the latest Dec diaries, will be truly great
3 years later we need a recap papa isp
Quarantine got him playing this again.... awe shit here we go again
i do honestly perfer the ck2 way of peace deals
Impetator Rome is the best Imperator Rome
I think Imperator Rome is better
Imagine being an emperor celebrating the victory your won over your rivals and you just liquod shit yourself where you sttand
Well, imo imperator is an eu4 with less mechanics... Does that make it a bad game? No. But it kinda makes him an useless game, because eu4 has a lot of other mechanics.
The problem, this era of warfare was very different in the situation: greek states were small scale warfare, never going for full on war. Rome however allways went all in and conquered almost everything at once. It would be reasonable if there was way to wage a minor claim-war for small expansions (like CK2, for the Greek states or for roman-persian/roman-german wars) to represent these minor borderchanges and full on total war after which you can slice a chunck of the enemy (like eu4, for carthage v Rome).
Let's not forget, even though most wars were decided with one or two decisive battles, the Second Punic War should have been a Carthaginian victory. After Lake Trasimene, Cannae, and Trebia, Rome still won. The Roman Republic was legitimately in ruins when the war ended, mostly in southern Italy.
Imperator Rome is so good I fell asleep while watching a video about it
5/5★
There's a lot of mana in eu4 but barely anyone complains about it ...
True that! I think people are a bit over sensetive about the mana situation in Imperator. Eu4 is mana-heavy but Imperator at launch was a mana game. Seems much better now!
I didn't get it at the start but got it recently, I don't see why it's so underrated. I've only really played as Rome but I've really enjoyed it so far, it's very smooth and feels like it has mix of eu4 ck2 and hoi4
From what I know about it, it's not bad, but it doesn't appeal to anyone in particular. For example, EUIV is a better map painter. CKIII is a better is a better rpg-ish dynasty simulator. Vic II is a better economics game. Also, the time period is not particularly interesting.
@@blkgardner I think maybe I'm just interested in the time period, so I get more out of it.
There's probably more people dying in the boats at 12:25 than the population of the islands
Ironside Pitch: Exists
Ironside: wanna change that, im bored.
11:23
Zeus : good question.
Jupiter*
I love the reasons for why Imperator is bad.
It's because it uses the mana system from EUIV.
So it's bad because it's like EUIV.
Lmao.
"It's bad because it's just a map painter"
.... so it's bad because it's EU IV?
It doesn't use the mana system anymore...?
@@Anonymous-ld7je "...just a map painter"
You did it! You broke Paradox down to its bare essentials!
I think the real reason its bad is due to the balance of power and lack of internal games to occupy yourself with. Rome has basically Free Realestate in gual and Italy and parts of uppper Iberia. Same for Carthage in Africa and Iberia. The Successor States usually fragmenet or blob out making it the most interesting place to play in. But even with all the buffs Selucids and Plotemies usually die from rebellions and external pressures.
The AI just isnt good enough to build up rising powers to match the player's snowball of conquests. So in the end it turns into curbstomps with a nation 10-50x the other's size noms the other.
@@MarcusDarkstar Meanwhile in EU4 Europe alone every major power has roughly 2 rivals. France has England/Austria/Spain/Ottomans. The Ottomans which is considered the best start still has rivals in the form of Austria/Hungary/PolandLithuania/Ejypt/QQ/AQ. Only place that has no direct rivals is Ming but they have internal issues and mandate. And you will usually always have rivals as a player, if you play as England, france or some other european power will always be a threat, Ottomans always have to worry if roided up Russia/Poland/France/Spain come knocking. The game gets more interesting up to the 1700s where it reaches absolute peak and usually a winner is decided by the last institution.