With the Clausewitz engine able to render fastidious geographical detail and political overlays all at once, half the fun of a good Paradox grand strategy game is drooling over the world map. There’s no exception here in Imperator Rome, which covers a huge amount of ground during the classical era. Here are the territories included, and the different map modes to view them from.

Map Size

It’s big. At its westernmost point, the discovered world in Imperator Rome covers Northwest Africa, the Iberian Peninsula, the British Isles and the south of Scandinavia. Moving through Western Europe, North Africa and the Mediterranean, the world map then covers most of Asia, excluding modern-day Russian territory and the inner territories of Saudi Arabia. East asia, including the Indian subcontinent and parts of modern-day China, are featured at the easternmost point. There are over 7,000 cities in Imperator Rome - you’re unlikely to run out of territory to invade, then.

Map Modes

Terrain map mode

This view is intended to give the bare minimum political information while delivering a pleasant colour-coded aesthetic view of the land and its territories.

Simple terrain map mode

This view colour-codes the map according to its terrain type, with hills coloured brown, forests dark green, plains lighter green, and farmland in yellow. Other details like marshland are also expressed, blue in that specific case.

Political map mode

In this view, each country is given a unique colour and borders are emphasised to give a quick overview of every nation’s territory.

Culture map mode

Shows the dominant culture of each region. Interestingly, this often bears little relation to national borders, with the Gallic culture group dominating much of Western Europe at the beginning of the game despite the multitude of individual nations residing in that space.

Religion map mode

Shows the dominant religion in each region, which again often ignores national boundaries. Much of the Mediterranean is dominated by Hellenic religion at the game start, while further north Druidic religion occupies most of Europe.

Provinces map mode

This view displays each individual province as a unique shade on the map, so you can see which groups of cities belong together.

Trade goods map mode

One of the busiest views available, this colour-codes the various trade resources available in each region in granular detail. It’s best used when zoomed in and managing a particular region of your empire.

Population map mode

Shows the density of population in each area, with brighter green indicating a denser population and darker indicating a sparsely populated area. Citizens prefer to live in populated areas, whereas tribesmen prefer uncivilised, sparsely populated area.

Diplomacy map mode

This view highlights your nation in green and shows every other nation you have a diplomatic relationship with in different colours to indicate the relationship type. Red is hostile, as you might imagine.

Barbarian power map mode

Shows the likelihood of Barbarians spawning in a particular region, as well as their strength and growth.

Trade route map mode

In this mode, all provinces with spare import routes are colour-coded in green, while those with none are coloured white. It’s a quick way of organising your trade routes.

Player map mode

Really simple one - human-controlled territories are highlighted in colour, those controlled by the AI are greyed out.

Fortifications map mode

Displays all forts on the map, colour-coded according to whether they’re friendly, which appear as blue, neutral in yellow, and hostile in - you guessed it - red.

Region map mode

Breaks the map down by broad regions, with colours for each one.

Supply map mode

Colour-codes the map according to the relative supply limit of each city.

Civilization map mode

This view shows the civilization value of each city, creating swathes of green or orange areas where either citizens or tribesmen prefer to occupy.

Opinion map mode

With this view you can see what everyone in the world thinks about your nation, with positive opinion depicted as green and negative as red.

Unrest and loyalty map mode

As described, shows the regions within your territory where unrest is rife and depicts loyalty levels of each province on a green-red spectrum.