THIS IS THE GREATEST STRATEGY GAME AND YOU CANNOT CHANGE MY MIND

Imperator: Rome or Imperator Rome is BACK baby! That's right, the best strategy game that got abandoned is still making waves thanks to the Invictus mod. You need to try out Imperator, it's just that good and is a crying shame that so few people play it. Regardless, today we form Scotland and conquer the British isles a millennia early, because we're just that good.
THIS IS THE GREATEST STRATEGY GAME AND YOU CANNOT CHANGE MY MIND
Become a CHANNEL MEMBER! - / @thesocialstreamers
Live on Twitch! - / thesocialstreamers
Join our Discord! - / discord
Help us out on Patreon: / thesocialstreamers
Follow us on Twitter: / thesstreamers
Shoutout to our Patreon Supporters!
Emperor Tier:
Lewis Wright
Matvei Novikov
King Tier:
Blenderman
Crilly
Flyerton99
Ghostwolf567
Henriki2305
iTzHuzzah
JdoW52
Sjalmi
Orginal
Redguard76
ShadowSinger
Duke Tier:
abayer
Aeryka
Arthur Pendragon
ColeZawesome
Cutaline
HoratioNullbuilt
Of The Dragon
Scorpius
Stormblind
Stuart Watson
Thomas Carmichael
Trever101
Zachary Older
Count Tier:
AssBreath
Bobby Bottle Service
Brandon Smith-Darby
danjamrod
Marius
Michael Scott
MisterODark
PrimitiveMorris
Red Star
Søren Ryge
ThatOneGuy
Baron Tier:
choppyrice
Garking
Hachi
Hunkulous
Morgan Jones
Prof_Toad
Professor toad
Tobias Lauge Borgstrøm
Trevor

[@carteradams43]

Paradox, please revive imperator Rome, just integrate the Invictus mod or something and keep going from there

[@association3cm675]

Hell no, we're getting free updates, the stuff Invictus released since Paradox gave up would've cost at least 70 bucks.

[@derekskelton4187]

PDX does free updates constantly. Please don't let memes rot your brain@@association3cm675

[@jarjab2games]

​@@association3cm675don't legalize the mod. Keep it on the streets.

[@griffinhunter3206]

or just give the rights to the invictus team

[@etherealcat6521]

this ^ I've picked up I:R recently and it's like CK3 but with eu4 mechanics. It's really good, but only with invictus. Integrate it in the core game, pay invictus devs and go from there

[@defm2]

Laith, IR levy raising tip for you: Go to the "levies" map mode, and you can pick which province the levies raise up in. Just click on one of the provinces highlighted in pink.

[@novideoshereable]

This works less well for tribes, because the levies are split up between various tribal leaders, so it will only raise one of the stacks.

[@zigedelic3909]

@@novideoshereable Yup, only the leader's stack will raise in the specified province, the rest will raise in the capital as normal

[@Legionarivss]

While we are at tips: 1. Click on a group, on the left side of your unit you see a button with an arrow upwards and one arrow towards it. (Left from the road building button) this makes it possible for allied and your own units to get attached to it. Now select another unit and use the similar button who's on the right side of the buttons. To attach the group to the other. Now all troops will march at the same pace. So your horses won't get slaughtered before the rest of your army arrives. 2. Making allies prior to attacking someone is a smart choice. Especially if you got claims on your enemy's land while your ally doesn't. So it will transfer control to you, if they occupy it. 3. Changing to bellicose status early game with your small selected nation I don't think is worth the 30 political influence & 1 less relations spot. You can get 1.5 claim for it which takes away most of the low aggressive expansion you would take anyway. Also the penalty to relations I don't think is worth it unless you're quickly going to blob. (Whole main island before 500 for example) 4. If you move onto an enemy fort, you will always be the attacker. No matter if your enemy arrives there after you. 5. 10minutes in you own 3 forts, which takes up 9 defensive spots. If you click on a province you can see that you don't have that many defensive spots free in that province. (9/3) Which make the forts way less efficient. In your capital the main fortification is for free. You're paying for those two extra. With Caledonia being positioned in the middle, it would've been safe to delete them all. 6. If you press government button, you can grab a free claim every two decades or so. This saves up political influence points.

[@rosschalmers4068]

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a proud Scottish tradition

[@ianbugenske7469]

You don’t have to payoff the barbarians. Every time they raid an area their stack gets smaller cause they settle one tribal pop. Barbs spawning right next to your starting region are probably your culture and religion so it’s kinda like free pops but with some short term devastation.

[@hbskull321]

In addition, they are way easier to defeat than their numbers suggest. You could beat the 8k barbarian stack near the end of the video with 3-4k troops

[@Geraduss]

Here is a challenge. "Holy What? Roman How? Empire where?" Recreate the borders f a later HRE as one of the Germanic migratory tribes 1500 years early.

[@anmai6717]

i see laith still try to convince people to play imperator rome

[@derekskelton4187]

It's good. Honestly a shame the trolls killed all interest in the game. It was pretty standard for a PDX launch game, and the internet hadn't really seen that in a decade

[@Brakiros]

Trolls killed Mass Effect Andromeda the game was a solid 7/10 but the raging horde of demented trolls thought the first game of a new trilogy should be 11/10

[@fish5671]

@@Brakirosins't mass effect andromeda the bugged and boring mess of the mass effect franchise ?

[@landynstella5977]

its not very buggy anymore and it has some of the most engaging and fun combat of the franchise, just like the story and facial animations are worse than most marvel movies @@fish5671

[@Brakiros]

@@fish5671hardly the issues the game had were limited it was blown way out of proportion by the trolls

[@brendanhill8483]

this is truly one of the laith videos of all time

[@robertalaverdov8147]

A couple of tips for those who've tried the game and were frustrated by the mechanics. Unlike EU4 you want to have a fort in every province and not just on the borders. Forts reduce unrest which increases province loyalty. So at least 1 fort per province and 2-3 for newly conquered states. That along with theaters and temples when you can research them. Second trick is if a province has declining loyalty of less than 34, you can switch the governor out and back and they will usually change to harsh treatment without wasting PP. At a small cost of loyalty, hopefully you didn't assign the governors job to someone with low loyalty beforehand. Third is to have only 1 city per province, obviously your province capital. It's more efficient to have have 1 city with 90 pops than 3 with 30. Pick a place with the best habitability even if its not the best resource available. Exceptions being a low population province (below 30-40) where it may be ok to have a 2nd city strictly as a granary silo. More available food increases pop growth, doesn't works as well in high pop states. Also your capital region where 4-6 cities may be ok for the trade bonuses. 4th and more challenging; Tyranny is your friend. Not a good one but it's the best source for AE reduction, plus adds to slave output, more tax money. So sack/destroy cities that you don't need. Just be weary of loyalty, maybe research loyalty techs. Next once you get legions there is an exploit where you can get them almost unlimited morale. It just depends on how many foreign holy sites you have access to, each one is supposed to give a 10% permanent morale boost to a legion when sacked. Its supposed to only do it once. But due to the game being perfectly balanced. What you can do is split up which ever legion you want to do this to and send one to however number of temples you want. Then pause the game and go through all the units and destroy each holy site with the legion. You'll see the event pop up repeatedly. I've gotten a 400% morale boost in Ironman. Usually I restrict myself to a meager 50-100% boost as I try to spread it around all my legions. And morale actually increases your damage output. My legions can easily fight 4-5 times their number, such victories give more rewards and bonuses. Eventually you'll have a single 10k legion smashing 100k troops. Lastly horse archers are OP, just like in real life. If you have access to the Persian military branch use them instead of heavy infantry and cavalry. Don't give them logistics or engineers. Have dedicated siege legions with infantry set aside. Because they can move at speed for 4, double the speed of infantry at 2. And they have 5 maneuver in battle. Basically they can hit everyone around them. Combined with the Persian bonuses and the special doctrine they're like roving helicopter gunships. The only thing that can stop them is a dedicated army of light cav but the AI never makes such an army. And they're good as far as army weight, not having the extra weight modifier that heavy cav has. Early steppe horde goes BRRT!

[@kesorangutan6170]

As a tall fan, I disagree with 1 city per province policy. Cities give you more nobles and citizens which give you more trade routes, research, and some manpower. Trade is absolutely busted in this game. By not building more cities in non-capital provinces, you are refusing to get that trade income. Hell, you don't even have to micro every trade route, just put every province except the capital on auto trade. Not to mention cities will assimilate and convert people faster once you unlock great temple and great theatre. You can also specialize cities better. You can make research cities with academies and libraries, you can make a trade city with ports, academies, and marketplaces, and you can make a manpower city with forums and training grounds. The only thing cities lack is their need of more slaves to get a trade good surplus and this is not really a problem in populous places like Egypt, Italy and Greece.

[@babyfaec]

Ty for so many great tips

[@robertalaverdov8147]

@@kesorangutan6170 I'm not going to disagree with you completely as playing tall is its own playstyle. But what I often found is that if you don't blob quickly someone bigger is going to come and blob on you. Whether it be Carthage, Egypt in Africa. Or Rome, Macedon, Thrace in Europe. And the Antigonids, Seleucids and Maurya in Asia. And they all have the same tech as you with bigger economies, more levies and manpower. For new players who may not be wanting to have a frustrating experience warding off multiple large empires, as the AI is very aggressive and will declare when you're fighting another large empire. The solution is to become a blob yourself.

[@kesorangutan6170]

@@robertalaverdov8147 Yeah you are completely right. However what you said depends on how tall you want to play. I don't usually limit myself to one region for instance. If I play as tall Rome, i conquer all of Cisalpina, Italia, and Magna Grecia. I believe there are like ~3400 pops in these 3 regions. It's more than enough to create a formidable army and economy. If you need more pops, you can get them by unlocking that greek tradition which allows you to do slave raids. Nothing threatening will come from the north but i still fortify the alpine passages. Then I create mercenary states, client states and league cities in Greece, Balkans, Africa etc. League cities are OP, especially if it's on a rare trade good such as silk (there's a silk producing island on the aegean sea. It should be a league city 100%). Client states will have your culture and religion if the province capital has your culture and religion. You can achieve this by founding a colony in the province capital. It's nice to have little roman states in the Balkans and Greece lol. Is this optimal? Hell no. Is it fun and chill? Yeah. Will this protect you against great powers? Yeah i can field a formidable levy army, navy and add some mercenaries/pirates on top.

[@yoanawramow4329]

This comment is like the Alexandria library for imperator tips lol

[@MrMath-2]

I'm thankful for Laith still bringing this game for us and don't letting it die.

[@SquirrelMaestro]

Imperator is and will always be peak strategy gaming

[@jarjab2games]

The migratory tribes are really fun. You can pick up so much population and then just pick an are and set up a suddenly very large empire. Also since migrating turns your pops into troops, instead of setteling them all you can steal someones elses land with them.

[@malikan5539]

You can move pops around to force 8 pops in to a province (of your culture/religion) to make colonizing real fast. At least in the unmodded version of the game. Laith should learn this. Maybe if he plays migratory tribes next.. it comes in so handy to understand how to move pops around for being able to raise migrations and forced culture conversions.

[@yeen4204]

also works with invictus. it can get a little expensive and slow though, esp in overseas regions to which you cant move pops and need to wait to convert a sufficient number of local pops (as far as i know). was very handy in my caledonia game

[@zigedelic3909]

OPV and Laith both releasing I:R videos in one day? I'm being spoiled.

[@hannesweinrebe4236]

I love it that you give Imperator Rome a Chance, the game is so underrated!

[@Zaire82]

Missions that force you to colonise are a royal pain. It held me back from forming Hibernia for about 10 years while I waited for citizens to be integrated and colonise, then again when I wanted to form Albion later on. All because the AI decided "Hey, lets wipe the pops from this tile for no reason".

[@commissarkordoshky219]

Fucking Laith turning Caledonia into Brittonian Carthage with his reliance on mercs XD You can take the Tunesian man out of Carthage but can't taker Carthage out the Tunisian

[@xanatar3009]

If Paradox releases an "Out of the ashes" esque patch for Imperator, Laith will have been the Aurelian gigachad to have made it so. If they don't and Imperator slowly dies, Laith will have been the Majorian to have not let it gently into that good night.

[@apollo9098]

Saw imperator, insta clicked, simple as

[@somemeansfish8987]

One great start I can recommend you although it can be kinda annoying is the Balearic islands (or nation of Gymnaesia)which has it's own unique mission tree direction

[@iquabakaner]

You have the right idea about mercenaries. The early game is about saving up for one merc army and conquer as much as you can with it before you used up your money. Also a reminder that you should use your ruler's army to siege cities (even ones that don't affect occupation) and capitals if you can, because you get the loot event that would help your treasury, especially if it's a high population city. You can literally get 1-2k ducats out of the Nile delta or Iraq.

[@kevdog6425]

I was thinking of doing a Dahae play through myself. It'd be fun to form Parthia. Maybe you could do a Galatian campaign and take over Anatolia.

[@yeen4204]

oh my god i just got back into this game and started up a game as caledonia after staring at the nations with content in invictus for an hour . . .. the same wavelength ty for spreading the gospel of this game! giving this game another chance w mods has been a great time

[@wallyvargas-rios9305]

If you go for a Migratory Tribe on your next video, I might recommend Batavia. They, like other tribes in the same region, can form Francia through their missions in the Invictus mod, having given rise to the Salian Franks, historically. They're significantly weaker than other tribes around them, starting as a tributary, but interesting nonetheless. You can choose, alternatively, to ignore the mission tree and establish a republic along the lines of Napoleon's Batavian Republic (uniting the Low Countries), or even go for the Terra Indomita mod so you can migrate Batavia all the way to Indonesia (RPing as the Dutch East Indies). If you were to play in the Terra Indomita mod, however, the Xiongnu and Central/North Asian tribes in general are much more powerful, with a lot of potential. The Ainu/Jomon of Japan can become a Theocratic Monarchy without having to deal with centralization, or you can play as Nascia to bring the Hungarians/Magyars to Pannonia a good 1000 years early.

[@linkluver_izn]

quick tip on barbs, theyre actually good because when they occupy a province they give you pops ^^- really enjoyed this video

[@Saaarmbii]

Got this game iff the back of one of your videos in the steam sale. GREAT game so fun but chill

[@carltonleboss]

This looked like quite a fun campaign.

[@jamesbaxterfirst]

I bought IR yesterday actually, and I’m finding it quite enjoyable

[@ahinz262]

Keep it up sir! Imperator Invictus is my favorite "paradox" game.

[@tinodubois3502]

Will move my Spanish channel to boost this game. Thanks for the recommendation.

[@FunkyMonkeyI]

British Empire forms early, promptly steals artifacts for it's museum.

[@Daud98369]

migratory tribe would be interesting to watch. by the way could you play as colchis or iberia, would love it if you did, thanks in advance.

[@wyvernscale9634]

Conveniently, I started playing this game yesterday! Still have no idea how this works but I'm gonna learn how to dominate >:)

[@GrafEisen1]

Raiding makes playing tall so much better, getting all those free slave pops in your country never stops being satisfying. Going all in on sea raiding makes for a great game, but even just using wars as primarily a way to steal pops over a way to conquer land is surprisingly viable

[@cantalope6980]

Laith and OPB doing imperator I LOVE IT 🙌

[@Aerozona23]

finally some more imperator rome 🔥🔥👏👏

[@thelaw3124]

I started a Caledonia campaign last week, can't be a coincidence

[@jonbathurst953]

This game looks like it would make anyone an expert on roman history lol

[@zevchesal8614]

The best mission tree for a tribe in Invictus is Tasm in central arabia. It is a bit challenging, but tons of fun and a great green color.

[@highgrounder5238]

One mod i can recommed with Invictus is "Virtual Limes", it significantly reduces border gore, so Rome doesn't end up in Germany and Macedonia in Belarus. Also forming Saxony as the tribe of Angles in Jutlane, then migrating into and uniting Britannia

[@faelirra]

Why would I try to change your mind, when I agree.

[@b.ug.p.7681]

I get a rather sad feeling watching this video and seenig how much work was put into this game with all of its pretty pictures, interesting mechanics and stuff and then recalling that Paradox forgot about it completely and not many people play it now even though it might be worth it

[@benzelmer8111]

Laith, if you stop trading food away your people will have food to eat😱😱😱

[@davidproud9009]

... I was actually just playing in britannia today to try get the Albion acheivement, but didnt make it. Managed to form Pritania but thats as far as I got within the time limit

[@Hadar1991]

So maybe take revenge on the Norse and make part II where you conquer all of Scandinavia? :P

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

Might want to up the music audio a tad.

[@bassboosted993]

He doesn’t have game audio in these videos because he loves the soundtrack and he wants to listen to it

[@Gustav_Kuriga]

@@bassboosted993 it's a good thing I said music audio then

[@tadijastankovic4350]

Play as the Selucids

[@omayaki5264]

I would like to see you try to defend albion from rome now!

[@HomelessInternetTroll]

Waiting for a Imperator Rome dlc.

[@harz632]

Imperator Rome was a title like any other Paradox game unfinished with a lot of potential but because it didn't have a IP behind it that forced the devs to invest into it, it was just dropped.

[@natedawg7943]

no way you edged us by not finishing unification before the video :(

[@alexmorrison3442]

Sinse Eu4 subscription went up in price. I'm going to be playing a lot more Impaerator Rome

[@StreetSoulLover]

It would be nice for Paradox to fix the Tribal gameplay, Empires are great now, but tribes need some love. Get that right and they have a wonderful game

[@TheQuickchair]

PLEASE DO MAKEDON, and REUNITE ALEXANDER EMPIRE!

[@corbwools0203]

this feels like EU4 mixed with CK3

[@MyTomServo]

We can raid, we can be slavers and we can EXPORT FISH!?!?

[@imperialhero1169]

More imperator Rome please

[@SereglothIV]

I assure you, it's not. You can feel convinced. Your mind is changed.

[@Whyalwaysm3]

what mods does laith use? i want to play imperator again but i need to re-learn it.

[@meanderinginterests2655]

Invictus is the main one

[@dominicadrean2160]

Can we get a multiplayer bannerlord series with koifish and you in the future😊 You can try a modded campaign series being the Bandit Brothers Or you can try the hardest bannerlord challenge the Tamerlane challenge start off with nothing and you're in prison hostile to everyone in your only allowed to recruit Bandits

[@prnghats]

When you play Caledonia in an mp, time to migrate away. :/

[@grievuspwn4g3]

Entirely off topic, I am sorry that Morocco also crashed out of AFCON.

[@zuao76]

Long live Imperator Rome

[@ngocquangnguyen4266]

he quite stubborn 😂

[@STORYSEEKER1]

Meanwhile me playing as menapia hoping to form Gaul but Rome have a better idea

[@Gamereal6286]

Leave it to Laith to play a raiding country, since its his secret passion after Tunis. And yes you can continue playing this game, noone will stop you. 😉 And since its Caledonia, SCOTLAND FOREVAH!

[@Greg_Abandoned]

someone did a raid on your hair

[@kristibbs2432]

Preach brother preach!

[@degoose2447]

I enjoy the game wish it was revived

[@dripstein5068]

Hopefully paradox gets their heads outta their asses and revives the game. We clearly want it to be updated and we all understand already how their games suck at the launch, also it was their fault it flopped. Horrendous ad campaign no early access to tubers. with my DLC costing 8 bucks a month they better start working on it

[@draganescuconstantin2380]

Laith i will buy imperator rome because you make look so fun

[@bassboosted993]

You need the proper mods too

[@bassboosted993]

Invictus is the main one

[@Malgravy]

Another Imperator W

[@dominicadrean2160]

Which gaming company would make bannerlord better under their ownership Total War or paradox

[@derekskelton4187]

Neither is really interested in the battle mechanics. PDX would probably handle the map stuff better. Guess it depends on which aspects you want improved

[@kesorangutan6170]

Laith, you are a tribe, you can just migrate one pop to uncolonized settlements. you just create a migratory horde, go to those islands, click on "settle" button once. This will settle one pop to the island and then settle rest of the people where they came from.

[@Peronizador3000]

Hey Mr Laith, i tried Imperator and like any other Paradox game it was hard to get a grip on it, but with Imperator it became particularly hard I tried a couple guides and i keep fucking up things, could you recommend any? Also, Boca es el más grande

[@yeen4204]

sithadmiral has a nice tutorial series for imperator with the invictus mod (which is highly recommended, it doesn't up complexity but simply adds more content, nations, mission trees, and some balance updates in place of paradox, with them having abandoned the game). it definitely assumes you have some familiarity with other paradox games, but if you have some familiarity with ck2/3 or especially eu4 (imperator is a lot like eu4 in many ways) its a great introduction to the game and its core mechanics

[@TheDartFrog]

wait.. Imperator Rome is from 2019???? I thought the game was like over a decade old or something

[@RealZemprofer]

beans

[@Tedger]

What mods he is running?

[@bassboosted993]

Only Invitcus i think

[@SnakeBush]

Neet!

[@Piratejoe44]

Day 190 of asking for an Oranje Free State Playthrough of Vicky 3...It's surprising how long it's been now in retrospect.

[@lsdrad]

Day 34 asking for a Mega Campaign with Koifish

[@Roegbere1]

Next time play as frisia please ;)

[@ondrejrichtr6835]

yesss

[@lapisdragon1237]

I don't want to change your mind on Imperator Rome, I just want you to play a Fire Emblem Game. Day 161.

[@depachy]

Which one though?

[@lapisdragon1237]

@@depachy Any of them. I don't have negotiating room here

[@rafaelschwertner5353]

Paradox is such a shit company for abandoning this game. And to think I had them in such a high regard.

[@Therealtihigaming]

MOOOOROOROROROROROOROROROROROROROROEROEROEROEROEOROEROEROEOREOREOROEROEOR IIII ELVPPPPOOOOOVOVVE DTE VIDEOEOE

[@ghastlyghandi4301]

Correct me if I’m wrong but I was under the impression that the caledonians were only founded after the Roman’s invaded Britain and fleeing British tribes went north and mixed with the picts? So isn’t the caledonians being a thing at this time horribly inaccurate?

[@RetconCrisis]

A lot of the tribes on the map have to be based on later sources due to earlier sources lacking descriptions of the people living there. So while the Caledonians as we know them were Picts mixed with fleeing Britons, we don't have any names for them until the Romans went far north enough to encounter them in the ADs

[@ghostlyninja125]

i got almost 800 hours in this game, need the devs to stop being sooks that it didnt start off great and get back to working on it. CK3 was complete garbage at launch (and imo is still garbage) and yet they stuck with that

[@griffinhunter3206]

poggers uwu nya

[@webo1521]

play annebar

[@dripstein5068]

No

[@GrafEisen1]

Yes

[@PrimeBlackpeer]

First

[@johnconnor8206]

Day 165 of asking for you to play Victoria 2 as cuba and become Fidel Castro

[@lsdrad]

Day 34 asking for a Mega Campaign with Koifish

[@bassboosted993]

Koi needs to be jarl haesting