Welcome to my Imperator Rome playing tall guide. I hope this article help you to enjoy Imperator Rome playing as a small but influential and powerful nation.
You need to be able to increase your population a lot to become a powerful nation by playing tall. So, how to increase population? There are only three ways to increase population. One is general growth, other is migration, and the final way is enslavement.
- Migration: Migration can be between the bordering nations, bordering provinces, and inside the same province. So, unless you’re bordering another nation, population growth via migration is not possible.
- Population growth: There are multiple innovations in religious advances that are increasing population growth. Stocking food via granaries in provinces also increase population growth a lot. Also build fertile land wonder for extra pop growth speed.
- Enslavement: You need to wage lots of wars as a tall nation to enslave pops and increase your population. Those slaves will later be upgraded to citizen via pop-promotion.
Remember, number of levies are determined by population alone. So, you’ll need to increase your pops to maintain a solid army. Until then, mercenaries your best friends.
Now let’s talk a little bit about buildings. Spreading your economy is not a valid strategy in Imperator Rome. What’s important is stacking bonuses. How so? You want to build aqueducts on your capital, stack pops, build metropolis, designate holy site, invest in province, and then build buildings. The rest is simple. Build marketplaces on your capital province for extra import routes and build tax offices on other provinces for tax income.
We need to focus trade on capital province because capital resource surplus bonus gives extremely valuable nation-wide benefits.
Imperator Rome Tall vs Wide
Comparison of the two playstyles, tall versus wide. Which is best or rather which being the most fun playstyle, tall or wide?
I should start by saying the best playstyle is the one you have the most fun. If you like ruling a big empire, and constantly conquering and expanding, wide playstyle is very suitable for you. If you like controlling a very strong nation from a very small powerbase, then go tall.
But if you’re not sure which is your favorite, let me break down the pros and cons of tall and wide playthroughs.
Pros and Cons of Wide Playthrough:
- Lots of micro-management. –
- Lots of family members asking for positions. –
- Gets tedious after a while. –
- Too many pop-ups. –
- Too many barbarians. –
- It’s fun to conquer. +
- Lore friendly for Rome. +
- Can screenshot your big empire. +
Pros and Cons of Tall Playthrough:
- Very small nation compared to Roman Empire. –
- Won’t feel mighty. –
- Better PC performance. +
- Very little micromanagement. +
- Flexible, can decide to wide at any time. +