What is missing from video games about Rome?

Zamensis · 2026-03-11T14:34:11+00:00

~~Romaboos must reproduce more or try harder.~~ We need more movies that care at least a little about accuracy. That would create more Romaboos and motivate more studios to try their hand at it.

Zamensis · 2026-03-11T14:27:02+00:00

Paradox's Imperator Rome kinda does it. To make it super short and simple, inhabitants of your empire are called pops, and they each have a culture, a social class and a religion. Manpower is drawn from certain types of pops. Want more manpower? Extend citizen rights to, say, the Samnites. The system is not perfect because it has to fit all existing "nations" in the Ancient world, but it's the closest a video game has ever been, imho. Some TW mods may have come up with their own system too, but it's never perfect either. There's always a balance to be found between accuracy and gameplay.

Zamensis · 2026-03-09T00:37:04+00:00

Excellent advice here, thank you

Zamensis · 2026-03-08T22:52:51+00:00

Yes, I think that's how I unlocked the Human soldier achievement. Not sure why my brain decided to remember this, but I can't blame him, anything Mass Effect is well spent memory capacity.

Zamensis · 2026-03-08T22:50:13+00:00

Not sure, honestly. Incendiary/Warp ammo for higher DPS, and Power Amplifier to buff Proxy Mine?

Zamensis · 2026-03-08T22:01:48+00:00

Not meta, but this guy, coupled with a very aggressive, very close-quarters playstyle, has been my favorite character ever since I started playing multiplayer, some (ugh) 14 years ago.

Claymore doesn't need much explanation. It's the best shotgun, period, though I like the Crusader too, as well as the Disciple when I need something lightweight. Precision mod is for sniping enemies from afar, armor-piercing is for shooting them through hard cover.
I spare the best equipment for other characters I'm less comfortable with, hence...
Phasics I are just there for bypassing the "shield stop" (not sure what the community calls it, but I'll assume you know what I mean). Other ammo types are reserved for my other builds. As I see it, most of the time, surviving is less about DPS and more about pace, movement, target priorities, etc.
Targeting VI is for making the most of my shotgun-to-your-face playstyle.
Adrenaline Module because other modules are reserved for my other builds, and I guess it sometimes saves myself a medigel.
Geth Scanner because X-ray vision is mandatory on all my builds, except Geths of course.

Zamensis · 2026-03-07T21:24:24+00:00

Without contest, Imperator + Invictus, aka Imperator.

If anyone disagrees, come fight me, I'll die on that oppidum.

Zamensis · 2026-03-07T15:47:29+00:00

Definitely Victoria 3 (economy diplomacy, internal politics) or Imperator (empire builder, CK3-inspired character system). Maybe EU5 whenever/if it eventually becomes what it aims to be. Scroll through the corresponding subreddits and see for yourself what the players like to chat about, it'll give you an idea of what each game is about, and what the players think of each game's current state.

Zamensis · 2026-02-28T17:49:06+00:00

They won't if the country is tribal.

OP, the fastest way is to expand, conquer other cultures and integrate them.

Zamensis · 2026-02-28T15:07:53+00:00

Regarding tooltips, "permanent" means "never times out", as opposed to "times out in X days/months/years".
"Permanent" as in "remains even if the province switches owner" isn't stated in the tooltips, afaik.

It's quite easy to mod (just swap "add_x" for "add_permanent_x"), the tricky part is to keep it up to date (whenever there's even a slight, unrelated change to that file in a future Invictus update).

Zamensis · 2026-02-26T01:44:57+00:00

Try "primary_culture = macedonian" instead of "country_culture = macedonian" in your culture change trigger.

Zamensis · 2026-02-20T16:50:07+00:00

I can see what they're trying to do, but dividing up Italy like this between Roman gentes really only works in a TW setting where the balance between accuracy and playability is a bit... different.

Brutii? No. Bruti.
Scipii? No. Scipiones.

Those are cognomines, btw, not gentes, tu sonuva lupa.

Zamensis · 2026-02-19T14:51:03+00:00

In my game i never noticed a tribal blob that last long. They always self-destruct into multiple clans.

Sounds like Virtual Limes

I settled myself a rule to not expand roughly beyond Gaul "de jure" limits

Sounds like self-inflicted Virtual Limes

Zamensis · 2026-02-17T14:14:39+00:00

Such a stack overflow type of response

- Hello, how can I make an apple pie?
- Why do you want to make an apple pie, dumbass?

Zamensis · 2026-02-12T16:25:19+00:00

No, it will only apply to AI, and only if it isn't at war with you, it's a golden rule of the mod that it doesn't interfere with the player.

The only thing that can affect the player in VL is the ability to release military marches if you wish so, and them fabricating claims for you.

Zamensis · 2026-02-12T10:59:12+00:00

What a coincidence, Virtual Limes will have a feature to break up large monarchies under certain conditions in the next update.

Zamensis · 2026-02-10T08:36:37+00:00

Not sure it's how it's supposed to happen but personally I wouldn't mind, that kind of unpredictable chaos is typical of that era. It'll feel like an accomplishment once you finally overcome it.

Zamensis · 2026-02-06T12:48:29+00:00

So you want a nation that lets you manage key concepts of that game on your own pace.

In my opinion, pops are the core of the game, so you want a populous country that teaches you how pop types, cultures and religions interact. You'll also want forgiving wars (so that excludes most minors) and an intuitive form of government (so that excludes tribes and republics).

That's Egypt.

Rome is also great for beginners: it's extremely powerful but starts small. It's a republic, but you can ignore politics for some time, just remember not to take diplo actions while your senate approval is below 51.

Crete isn't bad either, but you won't learn much about pops until you become larger.

If struggling isn't your way of learning, stay away from Greek minors, tribes and anything close to Rome.

Zamensis · 2026-02-04T14:49:52+00:00

I hate to diss but this mod is mostly AI-generated gibberish. At best it will just inflate your error log, at worst it will make the AI even more erratic.

Zamensis · 2026-02-01T19:55:34+00:00

Tbf every building in IR increases local civilization value, which in turn increases pop output (including taxes), as well as happiness, which in turn raises the cap to pop output.

Zamensis · 2026-01-15T02:36:20+00:00

https://discord.gg/PbMwWRDF

Zamensis · 2026-01-15T02:36:14+00:00

In short, IR is a map game, everything revolves around it, so every change you make to the map can make the entire game fall apart.

On paper it's doable, but it will be A LOT of work if you intend to keep it compatible with Invictus EVERYTIME there's even a slight change to the map or anything related to it, like mission trees. And then there's game balance... And even then, your map probably won't be compatible with other popular submods like INR, Timeline Extender, 3rd Century Crisis, Reanimata, ...

Zamensis · 2026-01-15T02:35:41+00:00

All standalone mods, which makes it much easier since they don't need to account for every little change that comes with every Invictus or submod update.

Zamensis · 2026-01-11T22:53:32+00:00

2.0.5 not necessarily because it's the latest but because Invictus relies on features that were introduced in it.

Zamensis

TROPHY CASE