I bought Imperator Rome when it was already discontinued and got all its content in a handy bundle. And the package I got is amazing. Imperator is smaller in its goals than other Paradox games like EU4. It wants to give you an experience streamlined to few core mechanics. So it's relatively easy to get into, but also very polished and full of depth. Major countries play vastly different and multiple approaches can lead to victory. You wont play this till the end of time, but you'll get many fun runs out of it.

Not much different from EU4. Did not improve on any of the game deficiencies. Biggest thing for me is how many mechanics remove agency from the player. Getting railroaded by random events that force civil wars, cause your levies to bail on you in the middle of conflicts, or steal your money, among other things, really takes the wind out of my sails playing this game. What's the point in playing well if it all gets taken away by rng forced mechanics, that you as a player cannot counter? Additionally, the missions railroad you into playing a particular way and often dictate you waste resources on stuff that doesn't matter to you.

Edit: Perfect example of bad mechanics and railroading. Playing Massaesylia and dealing with barbarian raiders. Took over a lot of territory and my I have 12 levies for my military force. For some reason you are not allowed to merge so that these levies can easily move as a block to attack the large barbarian group as one unit (essential to winning this engagement. Using the attachment feature means I have to go to each individual group to turn on, and even then it doesn't work consistently. Meanwhile, the barbarian army is sacking settlements and killing irreplacable pops since this place is so uninhabitted. I now get a random drop in loyalty, not even event tied, so half my units leave. Reload and get an event now that forces the same. Using console to force loyalty back means I have to redo all of the merge settings. They still don't work and my units lemming train into the enemy one small fraction at a time. I load back and swap leaders to avoid this, yet more events that drop loyalty and force the same situation. All because the developers want to force me to adhere to a concept of historical accuracy. As a player, all I can do is rage at the fact that I have all of the tools to address my problem but the game designers have denied me the ability to use them, or rig the game to force drama instead of just creating more fun mechanics.

Surprisingly overlooked game. It's good.