History GameBreaker / ImperatorRome

** In addition, Carthage can easily integrate a Hellenic culture to gain access to their unique inventions. So now, you have a Carthage that is a trading empire, has Roman military traditions ''and'' Hellenic technology. EarlyGameHell notwithstanding, you can easily surpass the Roman capability of taking the entire Mediterranean Basin.

* With changes introduced with 2.0, Scythia became absurdly effective, predominately because it's a ''huge'' tribal state with lots of land to quickly and easily colonize - and unlike typical such scenario, it just means more pops of Scythian culture following Heptadic religion. On top of that, it's a NormalFishInATinyPond, since it's surrounded by tiny Greek states and push-over tribals. And if this wasn't enough, Scythians laugh at [[EliteMooks heavy infantry]]-based legions, the typical "killing force" of more advanced nations, for their main unit, accessible even as a levy, is HorseArcher (further bolstered by highly effective heavy and light cavalry), a bane of anything else than heavy cavalry that's particularly effective at "default" compositions of levies and legions across majority of cultures. AI will never get to that critical mass needed for absurd Scythian snowball, but even the most incompetent player can easily turn Scythia into a major power within just a ''few years''. And once you "upgrade" your settled tribe into a civilized nation (for which the nearby Greek colonies are very useful), you're virtually invincible - even when facing Rome that spawns all over the Mediterranean, it is possible to just roll over it.

** AI can't properly compose them, meaning it mixes too many units and just replicate its levies, wasting all the potential of the legions; AI is also notoriously unlikely to get the right inventions AND pass the related law to even have a "capital" legion at all, not to mention numerous legions.
** They allow to easily dominate the battlefield, due to picking just the most useful unit types and the above-mentioned issue with AI. Even when facing other human-controlled country, the one that simply starts with requirements to rise their own legion from a start will easily beat the other player that is forced to use levies and mercs instead, and if both sides have legions, the one with more cohorts inside will overrun the other in battle.

** Sieges become laughable, since engineering cohorts work just like artillery in ''VideoGame/EuropaUniversalis'' series, offering massive, and more importantly, ''unlimited'' bonus to siege ability[[note]]A siege ends when the counter hits 20, achieved by going through numerous siege phases, each adding +1, plus various other modifiers. This means having 19 cohorts of engineers - a feat perfectly doable by mid-game, or even having a purpose-made "siege legion" - will finish a siege in a '''single''' phase, because the counter will hit 20 no matter what. And of course various other things can affect it, decreasing the number of cohorts needed to achieve this kind of feat[[/note]].

** AI can't compose them, meaning it mixes too many units and basically just replicate its levies, wasting all the potential of the legions; AI is also notoriously unlikely to get the right inventions AND pass the related law to even have a "capital" legion at all
** They allow to easily dominate the battlefield, due to picking just the most useful unit types and the above-mentioned issue with AI. Even when facing other human-controlled country, the one that simply starts with requirements to rise their own legion from a start will easily beat the other player that is forced to use levies and mercs instead.

** Sieges become laughable, since engineering cohorts work just like artillery in ''VideoGames/EuropaUniversalis'' series, offering massive, and more importantly, ''unlimited'' bonus to siege ability[[note]]A siege ends when the counter hits 20, achieved by going through numerous siege phases, each adding +1, plus various other modifiers. This means having 19 cohorts of engineers - a feat perfectly doable by mid-game, or even having a purpose-made "siege legion" - will finish a siege in a '''single''' phase, because the counter will hit 20 no matter what. And of course various other things can affect it, decreasing the number of cohorts needed to achieve this kind of feat[[/note]].

* With a bit of patience and some SaveScumming, Sicily can be made absurdly productive. Numerous territories are of farmland type, decreasing number of slaves needed for surplus. Syracusian missions provide settlements with further modifier decreasing number of slaves needed to produce trade unit of grain. Carthaginian missions after conquering eastern side of the island provide a modifier generating surplus resources by default, no slaves involved. All combined and properly spread, this can make the tiny island more productive than any other place on the map.

* The entirety of cultural integration mechanics introduced in patch 1.5 is for the most part counter-productive, doing more harm in the long term than it helps when simply used to add this or that culture to your accepted and keep them as such for the rest of the game... but it's a great tool for two specific situations, making extensive naturalisation of non-accepted cultures a breeze, rather than preserving them:

** After conquering new territory with more than one culture in it, accept the one with biggest number of pops within your expanded borders, greatly decreasing local unrest. This also means the smaller one instantly becomes surrounded by "dominant" culture, removing penalty to naturalisation. For even better results, throw in military colonists. Once you are done with the smaller group, remove protected status from the bigger one, which now has to face both your own colonists ''and'' the former minority that already got naturalised. Romanisation never was this fast when going into lands with more than a single culture populating them, a reverse of pre-1.5 situation. Ironically, since there are dozens of Greek cultures, it allows to make them all ''completely extinct in Greece'' (or turn it into a homogeneous culture of the conquering Greek state) within 50 or so years thanks to "targeted" naturalisation and playing them against each other. Prior to the mechanics being introduced, you could have variety of Greeks easily existing all the way until late game, ''even'' if aiming for Greek conquest right from the start.

* With changes introduced with 2.0, Scythia became absurdly effective, predominately because it's a ''huge'' tribal state with lots of land to quickly and easily colonize - and unlike typical such scenario, it just means more pops of Scythian culture following Heptadic religion. On top of that, it's a NormalFishInATinyPond, since it's surrounded by tiny Greek states and push-over tribals. And if this wasn't enough, Scythians laugh at [[EliteMooks heavy infantry]]-based legions, the typical "killing force" of more advanced nations, for their main unit, accessible even as a levy, is HorseArcher (further bolstered by highly effective heavy and light cavalry), a bane of anything else than heavy cavalry that's particularly effective at "default" compositions of levies and legions across majority of cultures. AI will never get to that critical mass needed for absurd Scythian snowball, but even the most incompetent player can easily turn Scythia into a major power within just ''few years''. And once you "upgrade" your settled tribe into a civilized nation (for which the nearby Greek colonies are very useful), you're virtually invincible - even when facing Rome that spawns all over the Mediterranean, it is possible to just roll over it.

** This strategy eventually becomes ComplexityAddiction, as a more straightforward way of crushing Rome is to have an alliance web with Rome's stronger neigbours, then declaring war when Rome is fighting her first war. This becomes especially valuable after cultural integration became a thing, making it in Carthage's best interest to take over large chunks of Roman territory in a single go.

* In earlier builds of the game, playing as a small, compact power, just above a city-state, but not bigger than 24 settlements (and preferably below 10) to keep the status of Local Power, allowed to abuse a handful of game mechanics, which, when combined, turned your country into a PintsizedPowerhouse, especially if all or at least most of your territories were within the capital region, simplifying the management. The sweeping changes introduced to the game with 2.0 rendered most of those advantages completely moot, but it was possible to punch ''waaay'' over own weight.

* Playing as a small, compact power, just above a city-state, but not bigger than 24 settlements (and preferably below 10) to keep the status of Local Power, allows the abuse of a handful of game mechanics, which, when combined, turns your country into a PintsizedPowerhouse, especially if all or at least most of your settlements are within the capital region, simplifying the management.
** '''Management''': Your country is small. Given the UI of ''Imperator'' for micromanagement, that's a great thing. Also, Local Powers have only three major families to placate (and one of them is the ruling one), making internal politics far more manageable. Same with cultures and religion - you're in your capital region and province, there are no governors to deal from the start and everyone is likely within the dominant culture, or at least very easy to convert.
** '''Tech''': Research speed is affected by number of nobles/citizens against your total number of integrated pops. So a city or two can house enough nobles/citizens to provide maximum bonus for a small country. At the same time, prices of inventions are tied linearly with the size of your country... but your income isn't. Thus, a small country can easily research at maximum pace, gain a whole lot of research points (since citizens generate those by default) and consider buying related inventions a trivial task due to both high income and laughably low price tags.
*** This advantage became obsolete with the "Marius" update, as inventions were replaced by innovations, which do not require gold.
** '''Diplomacy''': Only City States and Local Powers can form defensive leagues. While purely defensive in nature, other countries are more likely to join them and, far more importantly, ''automatically'' join wars when any member of the league is attacked (unlike alliances, which can be simply broken). AI both undervalues small countries ''and'' overvalues defensive leagues when making decisions for declaring war, so you can easily stay safe despite the small size (and massive treasury supporting the state). When it comes to the worst, defensive leagues are far more reliable and efficient than alliances when defending against bigger countries. Feudatory status is also very easy to achieve with members of a defensive league, further increasing relative strength of the leader of the league and both of those cement very high positive relations. In turn, this allows to simply diplo-annex all the league members eventually, usually in a timed manner, if one finally gains technological and economical edge by staying small for the first century or so.
** '''Military''': A small state can still have high number of cities when compared to its own size, thus having a large number of freemen pops, and thus a relatively large manpower pool. Combined with both the technological superiority and reliable allies, this means any country trying to bully you will end up slaughtered instead. If the defensive league is "upgraded" with feudatory status, the subject nations will gain a bonus to army maintenance, allowing them to afford bigger armies.
*** Marius update neutered any advantage that comes from large number of freemen, especially at small size, moot. You must be ''at least'' regional power (so have 25+ territories) to rise legions at all. On top of that, the more ''regions'' (which consist of few provinces, each of dozens of territories) you have, the more legions you can rise, making any kind of tall gameplay particularly tough, because you have anywhere between '''zero''' to ''one'' legion at your disposal and are reduced to anywhere between one to two (if you are very lucky) levies. A wealthy, populous local power is basically a tasty snack for anyone with large tracts of land.

*** Marius update neutered any advantage that comes from large number of freemen, especially at small size, moot. You must be ''at least'' regional power (so have 25+ territories) to rise them at all. On top of that, the more ''regions'' (which consist of few provinces, each of dozens of territories) you have, the more legions you can rise, making any kind of tall gameplay particularly tough, because you have anywhere between '''zero''' to ''one'' legion at your disposal and are reduced to anywhere between one to two (if you are very lucky) levies. A wealthy, populous local power is basically a tasty snack for anyone with large tracts of land.

* With changes introduced with 2.0, Scythia became absurdly effective, predominately because it's a ''huge'' tribal state with lots of land to quickly and easily colonize - and unlike typical such scenario, it just means more pops of Scythian culture following Heptadic religion. On top of that, it's a NormalFishInATinyPond, since it's surrounded by tiny Greek states and push-over tribals. And if this wasn't enough, Scythians laugh at [[EliteMooks heavy infantry]]-based legions, the typical "killing force" of more advanced nations, for their main unit, accessible even as a levy, is HorseArcher, a bane of anything else than heavy cavalry that's particularly effective at "default" compositions of levies and legions across majority of cultures. AI will never get to that critical mass needed for absurd Scythian snowball, but even the most incompetent player can easily turn Scythia into a major power within just ''few years''. And once you "upgrade" your settled tribe into a civilized nation (for which the nearby Greek colonies are very useful), you're virtually invincible - even when facing Rome that spawns all over the Mediterranean, it is possible to just roll over it.

* With changes introduced with 2.0, Scythia became absurdly effective, predominately because it's a ''huge'' tribal state with lots of land to quickly and easily colonize - and unlike typical such scenario, it just means more pops of Scythian culture following Heptadic religion. On top of that, it's a NormalFishInATinyPond, since it's surrounded by tiny Greek states and push-over tribals. And if this wasn't enough, Scythians laugh at [[EliteMooks heavy infantry]]-based legions, the typical "killing force" of more advanced nations, for their main unit, accessible even as a levy, is HorseArcher, a bane of anything else than heavy cavalry. AI will never get to that critical mass needed for absurd Scythian snowball, but even the most incompetent player can easily turn Scythia into a major power within just ''few years''. And once you "upgrade" your settled tribe into a civilized nation (for which the nearby Greek colonies are very useful), you're virtually invincible - even when facing Rome that spawns all over the Mediterranean, it is possible to just roll over it.

** In addition, Carthage can easily integrate a Hellenic culture to gain access to their unique inventions. So now, you have a Carthage that is a trading empire, has Roman military traditions ''and'' Hellenic technology. EarlyGameHell notwithstanding, you can easily surpassing Roman capability of taking hold of the entire Mediterranean Basin.

* Liburnian is the final answer to all your political issues, via UriahGambit. Need a way to get rid of someone? Give them a ship. Not a fleet, a single liburna. Here, an office of navy commander. Then, send them against a whole pirate fleet. Got captured? Not your problem. Died? Even better. The only downside is that it (obviously) requires a port. The best part is that due to being granted the office, you will increase loyalty of such character, possibly placating them (and their family, too), while ''nobody'' is going to protest when they die in impossible to win sea battle. The only tricky part is to pull this fast, for each commander is paid a substantial 2.5% of your total income, which by mid-game can be a small fortune.

** This strategy eventually becomes ComplexityAddiction, as a more straightforward way of crushing Rome is to have an alliance web with Rome's stronger neigbours, then declaring war when Rome is fighting her first war. Especially after cultural integration became a thing, thus making it Carthage's best interest to take over large chunk of Rome in a single go.

** Eventually, slave raids were nerfed by restricting its availability to cultures who have unlocked Greek or Indian traditions, and the tradition itself lies rather deep down the tradition tree. By the time you unlock it, slave raiding will be but a supplementary to your population management.

** This was eventually balanced by having the provincial loyalty decrease by ''15'' per freeman pop added. [[note]]Players lose control of provinces (can't build buildings, move slaves etc) when provincial loyalty drops below 33; you also cannot add freemen pops via military colonies once provincial loyalty drops below 33. When it reaches 0, the province outright rebels.[[/note]] In addition, the perk itself is restricted to cultures who can access Greek, Persian and Levantine traditions.

** Eventually, slave raids were nerfed by restricting its availability to cultures who have unlocked Greek or Indian traditions, and the tradition itself lies rather deep down the tradition tree.

** This strategy eventually becomes ComplexityAddiction, as a more straightforward way of crushing Rome is to have an alliance web with Rome's stronger neigbours, then declaring war when Rome is fighting her first war.
* Surplus iron in the capital province provides +10% heavy infantry discipline per unit of said surplus. Rome can easily gain access to a surplus of 8 units of iron in their early conquests, regardless of slave population. Then just steamroll everyone on their path with ludicrously powerful and un-killable heavy infantry. This ''might'' be intentional, considering there is a need to secure Rome's growth and easy expansion when it's under AI control.
** This was later nerfed, by limiting the bonus from surplus iron to 10 percent. This means that countries surrounding Rome and controlled by humans have a good chance of beating Rome.

* Liburnian is the final answer to all your political issues. Need a way to placate someone with an office? Give them a ship. Not a fleet, a single liburna. Here, an office of navy commander. With no pay, no prestige gain and no prominence attached, while your family gets fat on those governmental seats. Want to get rid of someone without suspicion? Give them a liburna. Then, send them against a whole pirate fleet. Got captured? Not your problem. Died? Even better. The only downside is that it (obviously) requires a port.
** With the ''Magna Graecia'' DLC, giving a general or an admiral their commissions also increases their loyalty, making this even more broken, as the size of the commanded force isn't accounted for.
** This was eventually nerfed by having generals/admirals draw salaries which are not insignificant (2.5% of the state's ''entire income per leader''), but you can still pull the [[UriahGambit "single tiny ship vs. entire pirate fleet"]] trick.

* The "assign to the region" command for armies is easy to miss, but solves oh so many, many problems, especially in early game. Instead of giving each army a general, which comes with issues of paycheck and troops' loyalty, you're giving them to the governor of the province. In the capital region, that means the ruler of your nation. Not only you can have multiple armies lead by a single person (no downsides to that), but you save on the salary and potentially your ruler is half-decent military commander by default, earning a lot of prestige and securing loyalty of soldiers due to "leading" the army (while still sitting safe in the capital). On top of that, the troops assigned to a region decrease local unrest. There is one downside to all of this - troops can't ''leave'' the region when assigned to it, ''but'' bar few exceptions, almost all countries share their capital region with other nations, meaning you can still use assigned troops to wage offensive wars, rather than keeping them on what was intended as military police duty.
** This advantage became obsolete with the "Marius" update, as the military system was reworked.

** In addition, Carthage can easily integrate a Hellenic culture to gain access to their unique inventions. So now, you have a Carthage that is a trading empire, has Roman military traditions ''and'' Hellenic technology.

** In addition, Carthage can easily integrae a Hellenic culture to gain access to their unique inventions. So now, you have a Carthage that is a trading empire, has Roman military traditions ''and'' Hellenic technology.

** In addition, Carthage can easily integrae a Hellenic culture to gain access to their unique inventions. So now, you have a Carthage that has a trading empire, Roman traditions ''and'' Hellenic technology.

* A nation-specific one: crushing Rome early as Carthage. A diplomatically-inclined Carthage can ally with multiple nations surrounding Rome, while fabricating a claim. After Rome declares war on a neighbour, declare war on Rome with the fabricated claim and call in allies. With the proper set-up, Rome can find herself at war with nearly every major power on the Italian peninsula. Even if prevailing in her own war, as long as Carthage can pry the Roman heartland with integrated pops from Rome, Rome is as good as broken. With a broken Rome, Carthage has no real rival between it ''and the rest of Western and Central Europe''. To add to the brokeness, invading the Italian peninsula early and integrating an Italic culture with enough pops allows Carthage to access Italic traditions, traditions which include the construction of military roads and numerous improvements to heavy infantry.

* A nation-specific one: crushing Rome early as Carthage. A diplomatically-inclined Carthage can ally with multiple nations surrounding Rome, while fabricating a claim. After Rome declares war on a neighbour, declare war on Rome with the fabricated claim and call in allies. With the proper set-up, Rome can find herself at war with nearly every major power on the Italian peninsula. Even if prevailing in her own war, as long as Carthage can pry the Roman heartland with integrated pops from Rome, Rome is as good as broken. With a broken Rome, Carthage has no real rival between it ''and the rest of Western and Central Europe''. To add to the brokeness, invading the Italian peninsula early and integrating an Italic cutlure with enough pops allows Carthage to access Italic traditions, traditions which include the construction of military roads and numerous improvements to heavy infantry.

* A nation-specific one: crushing Rome early as Carthage. A diplomatically-inclined Carthage can ally with multiple nations surrounding Rome, while fabricating a claim. After Rome declares war on a neighbour, declare war on Rome with the fabricated claim and call in allies. With the proper set-up, Rome can find herself at war with nearly every major power on the Italian peninsula. Even if prevailing in her own war, as long as Carthage can pry the Roman heartland with integrated pops from Rome, Rome is as good as broken. With a broken Rome, Carthage has no real rival between it ''and the rest of Western and Central Europe''.

** This was eventually balanced by having the provincial loyalty decrease by ''15'' per freeman pop added. [[note]]Players lose control of provinces (can't build buildings, move slaves etc) when provincial loyalty drops below 33. When it reaches 0, the province outright rebels.[[/note]] In addition, the perk itself is restricted to cultures who can access Greek, Persian and Levantine traditions.

** This was eventually balanced by having the provincial loyalty decrease by ''15'' per freeman pop added. [[note]]Players lose control of provinces when provincial loyalty drops below 33. When it reaches 0, the province outright rebels.[[/note]] In addition, the perk itself is restricted to cultures who can access Greek, Persian and Levantine traditions.