Overview
This is my guide how to manage large empires. You can add some more of course if you have any ideas that I missed or bypassed.
Introduction
If you want to play tall and live happily with your small nation throughout game time this guide IS NOT for you.
So you decided to try Imperator Rome and chose a nation to play hoping that you can historically conquer whole Roman Provinces as Rome or Reclaim Alexander’s Empire as any Greek nation or build an unhistorical custom empire.
So you have two options logically; play a small nation like Rome, Sparta etc. then expand or choose a faction that has already been an Empire at the start like Seleucids, Egypt, Macedonia etc.
My guide addresses both options as the problems they will face are exactly same.
First days
No matter what size of your initial nation size your first problems are :
-not enough manpower
-aggressive expansion penalty
-lack of money.
Your first aim is to have a large army that is enough to conquer enough lands to feed at least 100k standing army. For example, as Rome you need whole Italian Peninsula, any small Greek nation needs at least 3 Regions.
In my tests and observations in early game you should rule at least 3 Regions (not provinces). As you are low at tech to sustain our first target, 100k standing army you will need more lands at least 3 totally conquered regions.
For existing Empires will face a dilemma to spend your resources to pacify your unruly land by building temples and theatres to convert them to your state religion and culture or spam the might of your empire immediately. If you choose the first you need at least 20 to 50 years of peaceful era. If you choose the second you will face same problem like any expansionist nation: aggressive expansion penalty.
First war
Your first war must be against a faction that has same or close culture (in the same culture group).
The most obvious ones are Italy Region (not who peninsula, click the region tab to see it.) for Romans, Syria for Seleucids, any Greek neighbours for small city states etc.
After first war
So you conquered a neighbour and tasted first blood of your enemies.
The game gives you many options for elite families; kill them all, banish etc. I personally choose banishments to get small aggressive expansion reduction for Roman players who wants to go Empire may imprison each family then choose their fate one by one to get popular support to invoke the decision to form dictatorship.
You have taken a huge hit on your manpower pool if you are small nation or a huge aggressive expansion if you are an empire.
Before beginning to express how to solve money, manpower and AE (aggressive expansion) problems in their sections, you should observe your neighbours ‘ allies, clients, pact members etc. in the next section.
Divide et Impera (Divide and Conquer)
Any nation may form different types of bonds with any other state. It may be a defensive pact, a formal alliance, foederati, client state, satraps for Iranians etc.
Subject nations like Latin allies of Rome, any satraps, enters the wars with overlord. Vassal tribes, tributaries do not. So you will count whole manpower pool of the target nation and its subjects.
If your target state has no subjects you may see them forming alliances or defensive pacts. If your target is a tributary only its overlord will help it.
So basically after you get a claim you will see who will participate the war against you. Thanks to rich trade bonuses and other things consuming enemy manpower is not enough to make them kneel you have to hit them hard economically to prevent them hiring mercenaries.
After playing chess and maybe reading Sun Tzu’s Art of War you will stick the first rule “Know your enemy!”.
Your strategy is as title says dividing alliances, conquering them one by one. You will have many reports that even the best generals lacks THE LEDGER :). Use it.
In diplomacy screen you will see any relations. In trade screen click block capital bonuses trade offers you will need capital bonus for yourself.
100k standing field army
So after this section I assume you have at least 3 whole Regions, 100k standing field army, enough money to sustain them and of course 100 ships to carry them if you are not landlocked.
Here I intentionally separate my land army into two. Regional Troops and Standing Operation Army.
You need to assign some troops to quell unrest -4 unfortunately hardcoded. You can name them like Milites of Transalpine Gaul or any other way.
If you do not know how to, you need any army with no general then click the army orders tab then click assign the region order.
With operational army you focus your army into strategical locations like mountain passes, province capitals, river crossings etc. You need to divide your army into 3 duties siege and harassment and holding strategical locations. Your regional army cannot cross any other region. Remember that. I use them to hold strategical locations and operation army to siege and harassment.
As your defence is offence to harass your enemy you need navy or fast troops full cavalry to escape from enemy pursuit.
Why harassing?
Thanks to mercenaries. You need to land troops to occupy unguarded territories mostly not in the zone of control of forts. Check or click fort sign to see its map. If you occupy a territory you enslave some pops and kill some other then return to ships or friendly zone if you are landlocked.
Historically Romans finally vanquished Carthage after 3rd Punic war. In my Roman campaign I just finished 2nd and looks like I need 3 more to wipe them out.
As a side note: Carthage landed 25k units on Italy yes it did but in the middle of 45k regional units. Do not forget to UNassign them from governors if you face homeland invasions. Or you may try expensive option : Build the coastal Mediterranean Wall namely build forts to control coastal territories. Or wipe out enemy navy first. After 100 years I do both 🙂
Finally internal affairs
After this section I will express my strategies how to manage internal crises, revolts, civil wars, pop managements, slave revolts etc.
After some conquest to finance a huge army and spare at least 50+ gold monthly for building your empire we can finally focus on our own population in fact pops in short in game.
Our main goal is to keep them happy, efficient and equal (cough cough, not unfortunately in rights but in numbers.) Other than tribal nations you must enforce policies to have 33% of citizens, freemen, slaves that is the utmost goal.
These parts are the most detailed part of this guide so I will write them one by one.
Population Management I – Pop types
There are four types of pops in game.
Citizens are aristocrats, researchers top cream of your society. They give research points and trade income.
Freemen are mostly your manpower pool they just give you manpower nothing else.
Slaves are workhorse of your nation they give you tax income.
Tribesmen are different thing they both give you money and manpower. As We aim for Empire they are persona non grata – unwanted ones.
Population Management II – Pop happiness
As I ignore tribesmen I will go on the rest pop types.
Citizens are hard to please. They want to live in cities and prefer luxury imports. To keep them happy you need to build related buildings that increase their happiness, efficiency and ratio in cities. You cannot relocate them but you can demote them to freemen.
Freemen are your manpower pool so They must live in protected core homeland regions. To keep them happy you need to build related buildings that increase their happiness, efficiency and ratio in cities like citizens.
Slaves are easy to please if they are in your culture if not they are the worst thing you will face.
I prefer forcing them to live in rural territories not in cities or specialised cites that only have slaves as occupants. Unhappy slaves can revolt so you need to have regional troops to crush them immediately or they will gather more strength. They are the tax payers so you need to build the related buildings that increase their happiness, efficiency and ratio in cities that you allow to live.
Population Management III – City buildings
I will express my opinions on not only in pop buildings but also other buildings as well.
The first building in city building panel is training camp. It gives 10 % manpower. A must for manpower and freemen occupied cities.
Next building is fort that adds a fort level 1. I build them frontier territories and capital territories and ports.
Next is foundry that adds 10% cohort and ship recruit speed and 5% starting exp. In freemen occupied cities you may build them for exp. I personally do not waste my building capacity with them.
Marketplace gives 25% commerce value. In citizen occupied cities you may build them.
Tax Office gives you 10 % local tax. In slave occupied cities you may build them.
Court of law gives you +0.02 province loyalty. If you swim in cash you can build them in newly conquered areas that has different culture and religion.
Academy gives you 2.5 % research points and 0.5 pop promotion speed. In citizen occupied cities you may build them.
Granary adds +200 food capacity. Normally I rarely build them but in the next 1.3 patch as armies will consume food a must for future.
Library gives 3% local citizen happiness and 6% more citizen fraction in the city. You need to spam it to form specialised only citizen occupied cities.
Forum gives 3% local freemen happiness and 6% more freemen fraction in the city. You need to spam it to form specialised only freemen occupied cities.
Mill gives 3% local slave happiness output and 6% more slave fraction in the city. You need to spam it to form specialised only slaves occupied cities.
Temple gives 3% state religion happiness and 1 pop conversion speed. If you swim in cash you can build them in newly conquered areas that has different religion.
Theatre gives 3% state culture happiness and 1 cultural conversion speed. If you swim in cash you can build them in newly conquered areas that has different culture.
Aqueducts gives +4 building capacity. A must for metropolis.
As a side note : Roads currently gives bonuses to assimilation and conversions as well in addition to 50% movement speed of armies. So I always try to build them in any territory when the military tradition unlocked.
Empire management I – Regions
Regions are the government unit that you can appoint a governor and a regional policy for the each province which sucks as you have to spend precious political influence not for whole region but for each province the region consists of.
Region map mode must be one of your mostly used map modes to see your governor loyalty, corruption and total pops. Unrest and loyalty map mode just informs loyalty of your governor and province.
In peace time you periodically check these map modes how your pop are doing and take precautions for an imminent rebellion.
Empire management II – Region Pacification, Loyalty, Unrest
In the last map mode as you can see in my Roman Campaign Iberian lands are not happy as I am their conqueror.
They have a different culture and religion. So they will try slave rebellions, independence war. As their pops are not happy you basically get nothing for tax, manpower or trade income. The game will inform you about an independence war if it is about to break out. Basically your disloyal provinces turn into a different state and you have to reconquer them or take my strategies that follows this section.
Empire management strategies I – Specialised cities – provinces – regions
As you can see in my cultural map mode I finally assimilated my core regions after a century. I chose cultural assimilation policy in each province in Italian peninsula. So my Iberian lands and my Gallic and Iberian Regions are still have native culture and religion.
So we have two types of regions. One with state culture the other are with native cultures. Our specialisation efforts will change accordingly.
At first you should decide which one. Do you want to enslave whole region, province or a city. The choice is totally up to you. The only thing that matters is fraction. You need to form a social division 33% citizen to handle tech penalty, 33% freemen if you hate mercenaries like me and 33 % slaves for tax income to fund your empire. If you roleplay a trade empire that used mercenaries a lot you may opt for 50% citizens 50 % slaves.
In my opinion thanks to province imports that may give a special pop happiness or output bonus. Forming specialised provinces is the most logical one. Each region in game has different number of provinces so gaining 33% pop fractions for each type is impossible for whole empire.
As a case study Corsica and Sardinia as one of easiest example; I plan to make Corsica a fully slave occupied province. So I will spam mills in its cities. The city building needs political influence that sucks as well so capital city looks enough for a slave province as rural settlements are all slave pops.
In game Sardinia has 2 provinces north and south basically. In north I plan to accommodate just citizens and spam libraries and in south forums for freemen.
I highly doubt I will finish whole Empire social fraction engineering effort but I will go on doing my agenda.
As a side note for settlements (non city rural areas) it is best to build a latifunda – slave estate for the territories that do not produce food and farming settlement for the territories that produces food.
Empire management strategies II – Capital Province the melting pot
So what is the benefits of a tall capital province?
-Capital province does not revolt!
-Capital city and province have nice bonuses
-In war when you occupy a territory you capture or enslave native pops go there not always though
-You can go Stalin and use your capital province as the center of forced relocations that I will add more info on it later
-You may choose it as specialised citizen occupied province for tech
-It is nearly in the center of Mediterranean sea other nice ones are Antioch, Byzantion and Alexandria and Athens.
Empire management strategies III – Forced relocations
After the last update (1.2) we lost the ability to assimilate or convert pops one by one. That was too expensive BTW, currently we have just the option to move or forced relocations that we move slaves that are with native culture and religion to another province that our culture and religion are dominant. You can do this internally in a province or you can do it between two territories that share border but are in different provinces.
You may move them to your tall capital province in this way but as your empire grows it will be ridiculously expensive.
So we aim for short and middle term benefits to reduce province disloyalty. On the long term plan read my next chapter.
Empire management strategies IV – Let them hate us so long as they fear us
Long term solutions to province disloyalty and independence war differs in styles. If you roleplay Cyrus, you slowly build happiness buildings, temples, roads, or choose local autonomy policy etc.
Or just let them rebel if they can. Do not forget to move your armies out of disloyal provinces that I learn that order 66 does not work on IR. You may try to destroy forts but it looks like AI scripted to have some. This rebellion cost me only game time and as I modded end game date no problem for me because I am not an achievement gamer.
