Recent reviews by The_Spartan

Arms againts Tyranny, comes with some irony
First about the wolfram, shows someone failed in his exam
Sweden, always more perfect than Eden
Norway, able to conquer land far away near the hudson bay
Denmark, with Bismarck's apetite in a time they could not even bark
and Finland, against the soviet demand, trying to defend the homeland
At least we can buy some guns, in order to kill all of their sons
And some extra CPU performance, to help with our romance or at being a nuisance
But for so little, this price is definetely not wise
To be more precise, STAY AWAY FROM THIS VICE!!!!

OVERALL SCORE: 7 out of 10 (subject to revision)
MAIN ISSUE: A lot of issues currently present on some of the focus trees, as usual
BEST FEATURE: Military Industrial Organizations

IN-GAME REVIEW: There isn't much to be said about at the moment of this review, which I will edit later, but the highlights:

1º Some resources were changed, so we have now Sweden has one of the major tunsgten (wolfram) producers, which is unrealistic
2º Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland now have their respective Focus Trees added in
3º International market, for buying weapons, and Military Industrial Organizations (MIO)
4º Some extra "promised performance". Remains to be proven but I will be nice enough to believe on it for the time being.
5º New Unit Models added in, which is cool because you do not have to pay a separate DLC for those

Starting with the resources that changed, showing how Paradox loves to make Sweden more relevant than it actually ever was. I don't even know how to state the obvious more than I already did, but Portugal (1st producer of Tungsten in Europe) produced 7477 metric tons by 1943, with Spain (2nd producer) coming with 3902 metric tons in 1943 as well, with Sweden (3rd producer) being responsible for a miserable 290 metric tons and usually only making that much all these years of war. So what hapened in game? A lot of Portuguese production suddently found itself migrating to Swedish lands, because, common sense right? Someone gotta pay for the arms against tyranny I suppose. And this is just one example. Now the focus trees - which are getting tiresome in my opinion. New focus trees are nice but we are getting too much into the fantasy realm. It is no longer alt-history. Actual Alt-history in most cases is actually ommited, was forgotten or simply not spoken of (perhaps out of ignorance). It is a 2nd world war game for gods' sake, if I wanted something out of fantasy perhaps I would have chosen another game. Most of these focus speak about returning to something that no one even remotely spoke of anymore or that would be so impossible to perform that it should be a daunting task to even the most able player (but in this game we can become a superpower simply by completing one focus or another as a nation that was pratically a complete 0 in military terms and in ww2). Lastly, about the International Market. It has been simulated already in many ways throughout many mods, so it is nothing new to be honest. But it is definetely better presented and official now. Still, this DLC does feel quite empty regarding new mechanics, even with the MIO (military industrial organizations), which adds some nice customization.

Now, do these things justify the 20€ price tag? Even with the Unit Models, I have to say, "No". 15€ would be more adequate, since this DLC feels of inferior quality compared to By Blood Alone for example.

In Blood Alone be ready to have your Mind Blown
With a lot of war score,
You will get nothing but pain, everyone will contest your claim
Even the new airplanes lack some brain
Italian Focus Tree? Paradox on a copying Spree
Everyone will have to agree
Paradox are you needy? Then why ask 20€ and be so greedy?
Don't be an ass - and just pass on this one!

OVERALL SCORE: 6.5 out of 10 points
MAIN ISSUE: Peace conferences, despite fighting and ocupying most of the enemy provinces you get only a fraction of the cake
BEST FEATURE: Perhaps the Italian Focus Tree, which was slightly modified from a modders' work

IN-GAME REVIEW: There isn't much to be said about this DLC, the biggest modifications are:

1º Italian, Swiss and Ethipion Focus Trees added in
2º Airplane designer added
3º New Officer system for units, not a bad idea but badly implemented
4º New Unit Models added in, which is cool because you do not have to pay a separate DLC for those
5º New peace conference, while a good idea in itself with many good interactions, is terribly, terribly implemented

I do not know about the Swiss and Ethiopian Focus Tree, but over 50% of the Italian Tree (and eventual decisions) was copied from mods. They slighly modified things, but its still quite obvious what they did in here and frankly while it might be legal it still is quite shameful that people earning ridiculously high wages have to copy modders.
Moving on - The Airplane designer feels rushed - both the ship and tank designer felt a lot better and more detailed.
The new officer system forces you to do the same interaction for multiple officers, which will be a tedious and an almost impossible task if your army is gigantic.
Now, the biggest problem presented on this DLC - the peace conference. It is all sorts of messed up, and I really mean it. You will find yourself doing most of the work and then being able to demand only a couple of provinces from the peace deal because some insane AI lost a ton of troops over and over again, and will have a lot of war participation to contest your claims, while the other AIs will be hapily taking province after province while you are busy still wasting your warscore contesting the crazy AI that lost a lot of troops. For example: as Italy I have been fighting vs Germany since the 1938's when they demanded Sudetenland, and I pratically took 85% of Germany's territory and was the main actor behind its downfall. France was still able to contest my claims to some border provinces over and over again, while USA, Poland, UK, Netherlands and a few others took bit after bit from Germany in the meanwhile. When the peace conference ended, I had grabbed about 6 provinces out of Germany while the allies grabbed everything else, which was ridiculous to be frank.

Now, do these things justify the 20€ price tag? Even with the Unit Models, I have to say, "No". 15€ would be more adequate, because this DLC was clearly rushed with a lot of issues and with certain features feeling rushed and empty as a result.

When you are trying to extort
I hope people will not buy this shameful court
It is not about Royalty...
It is about DISLOYALTY
Disloyalty with your fans
'bout time you revised your plans!
Stop thinking on your coin box, Paradox!
Do what is right... FIX YOUR DAMN PRICE!
it is pretty dirty, when you ask thirty!
Forgive my malcontent... but it is a constant torment...
When content this old, gets sold at the price of gold!

OVERALL SCORE: 7.5
BEST FEATURE Highly customizable Cultures and the Artifact feature
WORST FEATURE 30€ for 3 features is pricey

SHORT REVIEW: I have played this DLC since it came out intensively and I have to say that only 3 major features were added.

1º Personal Artifacts (Swords, Armour, etc, like in CK2)
2º The Royal Court itself that adds new random events and Court Arttifacts
3º Cultures that are pretty much like religion, and highly customizable

These features are all good to have around, but definetely not at the price of 30€. I would gladly pay 10-15€ at the very best. More than half of these were taken from CK2, making the culture rework pretty much the only thing that CK2 lacked in comparison with this DLC (CK2 also lacked the Royal Court, but the Royal Court is pretty much just a bunch of new random events with Artifacts that you can place around for extra modifiers, so nothing new, since Personal Artifacts already existed and so did Random Events).

Game is not bad but it is not fleshed out and still needs a lot of things to be corrected. The Main issue is the speed... Even at maximum speed, the game runs extremely slowly. You can't really do much else to speed it up, so you are bound to waste many hours simply waiting time to pass.

Northern Lords? At least this one I can afford
It includes music and art, to please our heart
Plus some other things about history,
Right now it is still a mystery
It doesn't cost many Krona, and it is definetely better than Corona
Forget all this silly typing... Just go be a godamn viking!
Warlike and brave... but remember to leave a like to this guy that lives in a cave!

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5 out of 10
BEST FEATURE Pratically the whole DLC but personally, I love the music
WORST FEATURE Like always, there are always bugs but nothing game breaking

SHORT REVIEW: Sweden is not overpowered, but they sure love to make the north more important than it actually was. More content is always nice and this one isn't that expensive either, so definetely a "buy if you can". Usual DLCs from Paradox are a lot more expensive and in many cases don't have many more features than this one (Mare Nostrum from EU4 comes to mind in here).

This one includes music, new decisions, events, character interactions and more. You can choose to raise runestones, giving province modifiers, create the northern kingdom after unifying Norway+England+Denmark, send your sons to the varangian guard for random boosts (or, problems!), choose from 2 new dynasty legacies that give new helpful modifiers (+15% chance at seduction AND getting prestige (!) when sucessful is always useful, but there are other useful dynasty perks as well) and other things you will quickly notice as well.

The only real problem, are some bugs which do exist at the time this review was written (which will get patched sooner or later I am sure). For example, in one of these new event chains, you can actually make a truce via event with raiders that are currently raiding your land, and even start trading with them (which adds a random modifier)! When you do this and choose the appropriate option, you will get a truce with said kingdom, but they will continue raiding your realm. The problem, is that with a truce in place, you can't destroy their armies but they can raid with impunity, leading to certain problems like half of your family getting killed and forced into concubinage, but I guess that is part of the Viking DLC and part of the lesson to be learnt - never trade with Vikings, or they will want to trade half of your family away in exchange for your life!

This review is coming from someone with more than 370 hours in-game and with all the achievements done pre-marius expansion. Many might disagree, but despite being a big fan of Imperator, this time period and of Paradox's games, I have to give a negative review.

OVERALL SCORE: 7 out of 20 points
MAIN ISSUE: A lot of stuff added, good in theory but with bad implementation, with little to no testing in between and with extreme slow loading times.
BEST FEATURE: Cheap price, nice extra features but unimportant overall

IN-GAME REVIEW: Well, you don't have to play for long to start noticing problems added by the newest expansion for Imperator. From being spammed with the same event twice per month(!!!) until the completion of its related mission, or with bad implementations regarding the new military system like lack of supplies on armies due to insuficient units of supply trains on levies passing through micromanagement issues on the same said levies and even extreme long loading times despite having a SSD and a very modern CPU making this review obviously have a negative rating, unfortunately.

MORE DETAILS: I started my first game on this expansion as the Antigonid Kingdom. Started by triggering the "Eastern capital" mission and got embroiled in a war vs the other diadochis (as usual). Since I was at war, I had the option (via event) to cancel the building of my capital to receive part of the money invested to use it in the war being fought instead. Nothing wrong with that, except the event will trigger twice per month as long as the war lasts or the mission hasn't been completed (which means you will receive this annoying event more than 50 times during the initial diadochi war). An error that could be easily noticed with less than 10 minutes of gameplay / testing. Next, is the new update regarding military... While good in theory, you can't simply merge armies (that are raised as levies), so that causes a big issue regarding supplies. Many provinces barely have men, so they will barely have supplies attached to their levies. If you are going for a campaign on enemy territory, expect your army to die a lot to attrition. And you can't do anything about it, you can't even attach a supply train or have the levies use the food on other supply trains outside of the levies' army. You will also have to configure the apropriate tactics for each army raised as a levy, which is tedious work, since, again, you can't merge them all together. It is also an infernal task to actually control all of those levies on extremely large empires. Add the extreme long loading times due to extra bloat being added into the game, and you are into a little annoying experience on this expansion. There are nice features, like the ones related to Wonders and Artefacts, but by the time you are able to do these, you are already unstoppable and they won't matter much to the end result. Paradox was on the good road with the previous DLC called Magna Graecia, but definetely not on this one. I will eventually change this review if, and once they fix the current issues at hand. I also didn't like the drastic change that the game suffered, both in gameplay and visually, but I am not even taking that into debate for this review.

EDITED, PLEASE READ: The patch released the day after the launch of this DLC fixed the incredible slow loading times. Unsure what was the problem but it went from about 2 minutes to 15-20 seconds at game startup.

OVERALL SCORE: 6.5 out of 10 points
MAIN ISSUE: Bloated Focus Trees with ahistorical content, delaying war in the process. Too much detail in some parts that are actually a problem and not a good point.
BEST FEATURE: Cheap price, with unit sprites + music included. Interesting focus trees (which could be better) despite the bad points about them.

IN-GAME REVIEW (short version): Well, this DLC is a mixed bag, so I will be short...

The Good Part:
- The DLC is cheaper than usual.
- Interesting and detailed Focus Trees
- Good art / sounds / music

The Bad Part:
- Focus trees are too big for relatively insignificant countries in the bigger picture of ww2
- A lot of ahistorical fan-based stuff added in (Byzantine "cataphracts" for a country that couldn't even provide maintenance for interwar tankettes)
- Comparatively with other (in real life) stronger countries, some of the minors are actually very powerful.
- Lack of flexibility and static modifiers that will take ages to get rid of, delaying you from war for years
- DLC is so detailed in some parts (faction management for example) that you need several runs to actually understand the entire system and to prevent from doing future errors
- Lots of bugs included, many of which could be easily noticed just by playing 10 minutes, proving there was no beta testing or anything at all

- The LONG version -
I gave a thumbs up because for 10€ I think it was adequate, but I didn't really like some of the features. With other countries, their focus are so obvious you can't really make an error about them that will ruin your entire run, sure, you can "perfect" your strategy and rush one or another tree of the focus, but you can't really make an error for the most part. A lot of people complain that it will take up to 1940 to actually declare war but they haven't played all of the countries or simply only go to war when everything is "perfect". I actually keep declaring war on Turkey before ww2 starts, around 1938-1939 as Greece. Don't have a problem either. The main issue is that for example, Greece lacked armored units almost completely and they got powerful and totally ahistorical buffs. "Theban Warriors", "Macedonian Generals", "Byzantine Cataphracts", and many other buffs... Totally ahistorical for a ww2 game, specially for a weak country like Greece. Plus I don't think they actually do much historical research for these DLCs. Comparatively with other countries, some of these are actually extremely stronger than they were in real life. Greek economy was kind of a joke comparatively with others in Europe... Their extremely limited industry couldn't even provide enough ammo for their army for a prolongued conflict. They couldn't even provide maintenance for their vehicles (most of the tankettes captured from Italy didn't even end up being used in combat because they broke down and could never be repaired). And Greece for example got more design companies than most of the big countries, with many of these design companies (representing design companies from other countries) receiving buffs to equipment unlike any of the original designers from their original country. It actually makes for a fun experience, despite the ahistorical feeling in the end, but this DLC felt more like a fan-based mod than an actual expansion...

It's a shame that I love this game
Used to have a girl, but then I met this pearl
She said "it's ovah!", but why care? In here i can be a casanova
Got over 4 thousand hours on the previous version, some would say its because of my perversion
But why stick with sin, if i can be a Crusader King!
The only problem was the money, 75€ wasn't funny, makes me feel like a dummy
Game still uses Clausewitz... Send it already to Auschwitz!
Forgive me the pun... And keep your gun!
But some of them swedes love to be raiders... Instead of being traders!!!
You know, its (a) Paradox... And that is why we all caught the pox!!!
I would have used another type of vocabulary... but I don't want to be their adversary!!!
Thanks for reading... Now off to breeding...
Feel free to leave a like... But one of these days, we need to form a strike!
"Not one more dollar! Not one more dollar!" I know, it's an horror...

OVERALL SCORE: 7.5 out of 10 points
MAIN ISSUE: Religious overhaul (main DLC feature) could had been more completed for non-hellenic nations
BEST FEATURE: Cheap price, with unit sprites + music included, uncommon for a non-cosmetic DLC from Paradox.

It is a bit late for my review, but do I recommend this DLC? I do. Unlike Europa Universalis 4's DLCs, this one delivers almost as much as any of those, but at a cheaper price (less than half!)... INCLUDING, unit sprites! And even some extra music tracks!

All in all there is a vast room for improvement - for instance, the barbarians, in religious terms, are pretty much left out. Yes, they have a few deities, but nothing compared to the enourmous amounts the hellenic have at their disposal... and the celts in Iberia, for instance, got the same deities as the celts in gaul, northern italy, britannia (ireland+UK) or even those living near Illyria/Greece. Some deities might have been pretty similar, but others were local, and heavily influenced by outsiders. For instance, many coastal areas in Iberia had deities similar to those of Carthage, and some places in Lusitania even had their own "Ares" - called, "Ares Lusitano". Clearly greek influence. This is merely to say that not every celt prayed to the same gods. And even when they did, there were small diferences. Lugh in ireland, was diferent from Lugus in Iberia. Not just in name.

I understood they are probably leaving all of that for a celtic DLC, but if you sell this DLC with one of it's main features being a religious overhaul, then you should include a religious overhaul for everyone, not just for greeks.

Either way, I am leaving a positive review. And you might ask why after reading the previous wall of text. It's simple - compared to previous DLCs made by Paradox, it seems they are entering a new age of "DLC policy". Perhaps I am wrong, but if they keep selling DLC like this one, then I will buy it as a satisfied customer. Not as a happy customer, but as a satisfied one. Many could argue this should had been in the main game, but Imperator changed drastically since it was launched and it is much better than what it was... And all, merely for the price of 8€ (the changes didn't come merely with this DLC or the archimedes patch but they kept doing it... for free... without asking ANYTHING, except the 8€ you can give them now, unlike in other games made by Paradox, where you need to pay over 100€ for their games to be working decently enough and providing the gamer with enough entertainment).

This DLC is a bit Pricy,
And it doesn't bring anything Spicy.
It speaks about Iberia,
instead of the usual Nazi Bacteria.
Forgive me the bad Pun,
It will definetely be Fun,
But from Hawai, passing through Sinai and
going back to the guys that say Banzai,
The AI does not satisfy...
They still cannot manage supply!

EXTRA SIDE NOTES:

The DLC does include a brand new spanish, portuguese as well as a reworked french tree. Which is good. But as usually, Paradox fails to notice what is important about certain countries, like Portugal. I could speak about countless things, but for instance if it wasn't the community complaining during their dev diaries, Salazar, the one that actually controlled the nation for the entire game's timespan wouldn't even have a focus tree in the political sense, unlike anarchists which for example weren't more than 200 people in total by this time (ridiculous I know). There are also 0 sprites for Generals, Units, Admirals, etc for Portugal (so we have to play with default portraits! shameful). As a result I decided to publish my own mod about Portugal in the next 1-2 weeks. I have been working on it for countless months already. It is definetely more historical, detailed and most likely more entertaining than Paradox's tree for the same country. Be sure to follow me and subscribe the mod (once it becomes available) if you are interested in an improved Portuguese Historical Work!

IN-GAME REVIEW:

Coming Soon... But as you can guess, 20€ for the content being offered is a joke, specially since the AI - is still unable to manage supply, like my review stated. We will have to deal with Russia losing countless men because they are way over the supply limit, losing equipment in the process in huge quantities, for now. I bet Nazi Germany will, steamroll Russia most of the times as a consequence, but I hope I am wrong.

EDITED (a bit too late I know):

As you can imagine, Germany is still too OP and Russia always gets steamrolled easily. They simply cannot cope with the heavy losses and the loss of equipment (in many cases, due to supply!!!). The DLC is pretty well overpriced in my opinion, and spying pretty redundant in most cases unless you got a lot of independent nations on your alliance, which is quite rare and usually only (sucessfully) achieved as a nation belonging to the allies (usually as the UK itself since you can release countless nations as independent and make them join your alliance). I am sorry for this late edit, but I had problems. Also if you are still looking for the mods I promised, I started releasing some the past weeks, check my profile for direct links. More to come soon!