Paradox has temporarily shelved Imperator: Rome to focus on other projects.

In a post on its forum titled "update of the organisation at PDS", the company outlined various internal changes made to its main development studio earlier this year.

The 150-person strong strategy studio is now split into three distinct studios: PDS Green, PDS Red, and PDS Gold. Each team is in charge of maintaining existing games and developing new games set to be announced at PDXCON, the company's upcoming showcase event.

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New subscribers who start a year of Humble Choice Premium from the Humble Bundle website can get 45% off for Black Friday, reducing the price from £142.99 to £81.99 for the first year itself.

For those who don't know, Humble Choice Premium is a PC subscription service that allows players to pick a series of digital games to keep each month from a pool of 10 games or more. These range from small indie games to big AAA installments, but the amount you get to pick depends on the subscription plan you're on.

Fortunately, Premium is one of the best options, giving players the option to keep 9 of those games, as well as access to the Humble Trove (an online database of DRM-free games you can download for free), and a 20% discount on any other game you buy via Humble Bundle. If you need any more details, you can see them explained here.

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What is it about the Roman empire that makes it so enduringly fascinating, when other historical empires eclipse it in so many ways? There have been bigger empires (British), older empires (Persian), and more ferocious empires (Mongol). Yet few people ever talk about what the Mongols did for us.

I partly answered my own question by using the word "Empire" which is of course derived from Latin. Despite having collapsed over 1500 years ago, Rome's cultural influence remains part of our lives in everything from language to religion. But I think a more comprehensive answer lies in another Latin-derived word - "Romance". When I think of the British Empire, I think of belching smokestacks, tea, and a fat old woman dressed in black. When I think of the Roman Empire, I think of mad emperors, gladiators, assassinations, and red.

I'm aware that's not an accurate portrayal of either period, but the colour of Rome remains startlingly vibrant in a way that no other historical empire does, and it's this colour that Imperator sadly lacks. Paradox's latest strategic colossus is possibly its grandest yet. Yet despite being literally about painting the map in SPQR scarlet, its representation of the period feels oddly cold and sterile, more interested in percentages than populi.

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Imperator: Rome is Paradox's big new grand strategy game, due out in 2019.

The game, made by Paradox's internal development studio (Europa Universalis, Crusader Kings), lets you explore alternative histories. Here's the set-up:

"What we think of as 'western civilisation' was not guaranteed. Imagine Alexander's empire centralised under one successor. Italy might never have been unified under Roman rule, strangling a juggernaut in its cradle. A world without Caesar. Now you can explore these alternate histories in Imperator: Rome."

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