The free Livy update to Imperator: Rome and the also free Punic Wars DLC out December 3

It's a game that really interests me (I am a sucker for Ancient Rome), but I have held off buying it because of the mediocre ratings it got at launch. Would people say it's worth buying now, or should I wait a bit longer?

The game got better since launch, that's for sure : there's a lot more to manage now in terms of city/land management, more events, more decisions to make, or simply put more strategy.

I initially was a bit disappointed after playing it a few days after the release, but resumed playing it 3 weeks ago. Haven't stopped since :D

But still, I wouldn't call it completely finished :
- some UI issues (no Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click when you have to move dozens of pops from one province to another...)
- one or two minor but questionable game design decisions
- lack of different gameplays apart from some differences between government types that have a moderate impact. But I bet they will introduce customization in specific-countries-related DLCs.

So perhaps you should wait a little longer.

IMHO Paradox as a company made a deep dive and we have lost one of the more interesting company for strategic fans.

There is just such a big difference in development of a fully finished title, where any expansion will come later after players made a deep analysis of the game and everyone understand the weaker aspects that could be overhauled, and development of a title as a blank slate that could be later upgraded every half year.

Just look at this video. It doesn't tell you anything. It's not even interesting! Now compare it with CK2 videos of Seven Deadly Sins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpAYY3BvviE

The difference in a fun, informativeness and so on is astonishing!

Sorry for the rant.

Quoting: ColomboIMHO Paradox as a company made a deep dive and we have lost one of the more interesting company for strategic fans.

I am not sure I agree with this. While this game did get a lukewarm reception, I cannot name you another recent Paradox title that wasn't at least good, if not great. Stellaris, Cities Skylines and Hearts of Iron IV are arguably the best games of their respective genres, and Surviving Mars is still a good game.

Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: ColomboIMHO Paradox as a company made a deep dive and we have lost one of the more interesting company for strategic fans.

I am not sure I agree with this. While this game did get a lukewarm reception, I cannot name you another recent Paradox title that wasn't at least good, if not great. Stellaris, Cities Skylines and Hearts of Iron IV are arguably the best games of their respective genres, and Surviving Mars is still a good game.

I need to disagree with you strongly regarding Stellaris and Cities Skylines.

Stellaris was bad game. Very bad game. The first two hours of the first two games were great because the start is heavily exploration and event focused. This becomes however problem once they are not novelty thing any more. The rest of the game is however bad. This is very visible once you reach sectors, advanced warfare, diplomacy and other stuff in late game. I am not even mentioning the slogfest of conquering planets, forcing peace after sitting on them or troop transports that essentially serve no interesting purpose. And yeah, most technologies are just +5% to X. Only few of them allows you some specialization. And those are usually no-brainers.

Compare with Alpha-Centauri. There you had some storyline as well, some events that explained you interaction with planets. And a lot of quotes from individual leaders about technologies. The planet storyline stopped being exploring something strange alien after second gameplay. Quotes from leaders were not a new thing that you did read religiously at the similar time. But even after you would remove these elements, you had a solid mechanics in the form of honed and expanded Civ2 engine. With a powerful terraforming (which you could use as a weapon) and unit customization (which was not as interesting as it seemed). More than that, the planet storyline and quotes from leader, even after they got old, still served their function, to anchor player into the story, create certain athmosphere and sense of progression. This is completely missing from Stellaris. EU series didn't need it (as much), because this was done through historical quotes, the anchoring is done through historical conotation to real history, same as with standard Civs. And this is the same reason why no one could replicate the success of Alpha-Centauri, because no dev realized this difference (turns out you need superb mechanics and very distinct races with very distinct gameplay).

Stellaris just failed on the mechanical side (dev agreed, thats why the massive overhaul). And unfortunatelly, the events do not have some decent anchoring (one storyline does, but is quite inconsequential), but are build on purely exploration or nonsensical-fun purpose (bottle in space). And when those got old, they do not help anchor the gameplay any more.

Read this review: https://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2016/05/18/bone-dry-sci-fi-stellaris-game-doesnt-even-work/

Regarding Cities-Skyline, I was equally dissapointed. I expected Sim-City killer. Instead I got sandbox with very narrow way to develop city (all interesting things are locked down at the start of the game) with a very simplistic economy and stuff to do in game. Its basically road-building simulator. Canvas to which you paint. Thats nice, but thats nothing like Sim-City was, which was a good (and sometimes quite challenging) game in the first place. With much greater options for building diverse cities from start. Likewise, quartertothree (a strategy fanboy) put it into top10 overrated games.