The “Cicero” update to Imperator: Rome makes a number of dramatic changes to the core game, letting the player focus on political consequences and imperial governance instead of waiting for numbers to grow. Provincial populations can now be nudged towards assimilation, but are mostly autonomous in their preferences. Provinces themselves can be developed along a range of settlement sizes, according to your priorities and wealth.
The political and military games have also been enhanced. Advisor loyalty will affect how flexible you are in meeting new political challenges, and balancing the competing factions in your empire will be important in new ways. Your armies must gain experience in order to adopt new traditions, but that might mean risky wars or expensive drilling.
In all, “Cicero” is an attempt to see if new game design ideas can work in one of our favorite settings.
