Paradox Development Studios is famous for their grand strategy games including the flagship Europa Universalis franchise. While a new main version is developed under code name Project Caesar, the latest Europa Universalis IV still gets new expansion packs (Download Content) and updates to the base game. Paradox even backported several former add-ons into the latest version of the base games. We are talking about a product originally released in 2013, almost a teenager now.
Their 2019 spin off Imperator: Rome turned out to be a much smaller commercial success. After a few add-ons and updates it got cancelled in 2021 due to dwindling sales. It was not their first foray into ancient history. Europa Universalis: Rome debuted in 2008 but it was not a long lived installment. Only one download content got produced before the product was relegated to the back catalog.
While Imperator: Rome is based on technology introduced for Europa Universalis 4 and the concurrent generation of spinoffs, Europa Universalis: Rome is clearly a member of the Europa Universalis 3 generation of the engine, UI design and scripting approaches. Imperator debuted the Jomini middleware between the Clausewitz engine and the actual game content. Jomini has since been used in later installments of various Paradox Grand Strategy games.
Even though Imperator product development has been cancelled in 2021, Paradox employees have still worked on bug fixes and feature patches. In April 2024, a new version 2.0.4 has been released for all supported platforms after it was available as an opt-in beta version for several months. In December 2024 a new patch 2.0.5 has been made available as public beta. The patch contains minor UI tweaks, some fixes to the computer player AI, some bug fixes and many additional hooks and exposed variables for the scripting engine. This allows builders of unofficial game modifications (“Mods”) to add new behaviours to the game like Trade Embargoes or forbidding some game characters to inherit provinces. Imperator: Invictus is the most prominent modification for the official Imperator game. It works both with the latest version of the base game and optionally all available official addons.
I find it very motivating and inspiring when a vendor continues to work with fans and open source community and supports their efforts to add more value to their discontinued commercial product.
As of January 2025 Imperator: Rome and all individual add-ons are available at a heavy discount from Paradox’ own store. At the moment they offer the individual components for less money than the official bundle. I am in no way affiliated with Paradox but I like the way they do this and the game is really fun.